GIFT  OF 

SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  1.  COCBRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 
DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 
JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


HISTORY 


is 


THE    ROMANS 


UNDER  THE   EMPIRE. 


CHARLES  MERIVALE,  B.D., 

LATE     FELLOW    OF     ST.    JOHN'S     COLLEGE,     CAMBRIDGE. 


FROM  THE  FOURTH  LONDON  EDITION. 


WITH  A    COPIOUS  ANALYTICAL   INDEX. 


VOL.  IV. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.  APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

443  &  445  BROADWAY. 
1864. 


CONTENTS 

OF   THE   FOURTH   VOLUME. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Anticipations  of  constitutional  monarchy. — Indifference  of  the  mass  of  the  citizens  on 
political  questions.— Augustus  studies  to  revive  the  national  sentiment.— His  con- 
servation of  the  patrician  caste  :  of  the  religious  ceremonial. — Restoration  of  tem- 
ples and  special  cults. — Conservation  of  the  rights  of  property :  of  matrimony.— 
Legislative  measures  to  encourage  marriage.— Regulations  for  the  distinction  of 
classes. — Jurisprudence  of  Augustus. — Completion  of  his  policy. — His  personal 
popularity  not  disturbed  by  occasional  severity. — Disgrace  and  death  of  Cornelius 
Callus.— The  jubilee  of  the  Roman  people.— Considerations  on  the  authenticity  of 
the  imperial  history,  ........  Page  7 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

The  organization  of  the  provinces  by  Augustus.— 1.  Spain  :  Final  pacification  of  the 
mountain  tribes.— 2.  Gaul :  Tribute  promised  by  the  Britons ;  reduction  of  tho 
Alpine  tribes. — 3.  Mcesia  and  Thrace.— 4.  Kingdom  of  Mauretania. — 5.  Province 
of  Africa. — 6.  The  Cyrenaica. — 7.  Egypt:  Expedition  of  ^Elius  Gallus  into  Arabia. 
—8.  Egypt :  Repulse  of  the  Ethiopians.— 9.  Asia  Minor  :  Bithynia,  Asia,  and  the 
dependent  kingdoms.  — 10.  Syria  and  Palestine:  Parthia  and  Armenia. — 11. 
Achaia.— 12.  Illyricnm.— 13.  Italy,  Sardinia,  and  Corsica,  .  .  .60 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

The  Csesarean  family.— Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus,  by  Scribonia,  married  to  Marcel- 
lus,  son  of  Octavia.— High  promise  and  early  death  of  Marcellus.— Julia  united  to 
Agrippa. — Augustus  receives  the  tribunitian  and  the  consular  powers. — Agrippa 
is  raised  to  a  participation  in  the  former.— Prefecture  of  manners.— Revision  of 
the  senate.— Secular  games.— Prefecture  of  the  city.— Conduct  and  character  of 
Mfficenas. — Augustus  in  Gaul,  and  Agrippa  in  the  East. — Conquest  of  Rhaatia  and 
Yindelicia  by  Tiberius  and  Drusus,  stepsons  of  Augustus.— Tiberius  consul  in  741. 
— Augustus  and  Agrippa  return  to  Rome. — Augustus  chief  pontiff. — Campaign  of 
Agrippa  against  the  Pannonians. — His  illness  and  death. — Character  of  Agrippa 
(A.  u.  726-742,  B.  c.  25-12), 124 


245257 


4:  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

The  children  of  Agrippa.— Character  of  the  Claudii :  Tiberius  and  Drusus.—  Marriage 
of  Tibering  and  Julia. — Policy  of  the  empire  on  the  Rhine  and  Danube.— Expedi- 
tion of  Drusus  in  Germany,  and  Tiberius  in  Pannonia.— Death  of  Drnsus,  A.  u.  745. 
— Extension  of  the  empire  in  Thrace  and  Mcesia. — Tiberius  invades  Germany. — 
Introduction  of  Cains  Caesar  to  public  life.— Death  of  Maecenas,  and  final  remarks 
on  his  character  (A.  u.  742-747,  B.  c.  12-7),  .....  IfiO 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

The  history  of  Rome  assumes  the  character  of  a  domestic  drama.— Character  and  con- 
duct of  Julia,  and  of  Caius  and  Lucius  Caesar.— Augustus  holds  the  balance  be- 
tween his  grandsons  and  Tiberius. — Disgust  and  retirement  of  Tiberius  to  Rhodes 
(A.  u.  748,  B.  c.  6).— Disgrace  and  banishment  of  Julia.— Deaths  of  Caius  and  Lu- 
cius.—Recall  of  Tiberius  (A.  u.  757,  A.  D.  4)  •.  he  receives  the  tribunitian  power  a 
second  time,  and  is  adopted  by  Augustus. — Conspiracy  of  Cinna,  and  clemency  of 
Augustus. — Review  of  the  personal  habits  of  Augustus  in  his  later  years  (A.  u.  747, 
B.  c.  7  ;  A.  u.  757,  A.  D.  4) 197 

CHAPTER  XXXVm. 

Tiberius,  on  his  return  from  Rhodes,  at  first  takes  no  part  in  public  affairs. — After  the 
death  of  Caius  he  comes  again  forward.— His  mission  to  Gaul  in  757. — He  reaches 
the  Elbe. — The  Marcomanni  and  the  kingdom  of  Maroboduus. — Expedition  of 
Tiberius  against  the  Mareomanni  in  759.— Frustrated  by  the  revolt  of  the  Panno- 
nians.— Alarm  at  Rome. — Banishment  of  Agrippa  Postumus.— The  Pannonians 
are  reduced  by  Tiberius  and  Germanicus,  A.  r.  759-762. — Intrigues  against  Augus- 
tus.— Banishment  of  the  younger  Julia.— Banishment  of  the  poet  Ovidius  Naso, 
761. — Discontent  of  the  citizens. — The  Roman  province  between  the  Rhine  and 
Elbe.— Overthrow  of  Varus  and  loss  of  three  legions,  763.— Consternation  at  Rome. 
— Tiberius  sent  to  the  Rhine. — Old  age  of  Augustus. — Tiberius  receives  the  pro- 
consular power,  and  is  virtually  associated  in  the  empire. — His  hopes  of  the  suc- 
cession.—Rumoured  reconciliation  of  Augustus  with  Agrippa  Postumus. — Record 
of  the  acts  of  Augustus.— Monumentum  Ancyranum.— Last  days  and  death  of 
Augustus.— Conclusion  (A.  D.  4-14,  A.  tr.  757-767),  ....  233 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

Unity  of  the  Roman  empire.— Contrast  between  the  three  great  divisions  of  the  an- 
cient world,  the  East,  the  North,  and  the  West. — Variety  within  the  Roman 
empire:  1.  of  languages;  2.  of  religions;  8.  of  classes:  citizens,  subjects,  and  al- 
lies, all  gradually  tend  to  a  single  type. — Elements  of  unity  in  the  Roman  empire 
from  its  geographical  features.— Italy  and  the  Mediterranean.— Communications 
by  sea  and  land. — Map  of  the  empire  :  Surveys  :  Census  and  Professlo. — Brevia- 
rium  or  register  of  the  empire. — The  population  of  the  Roman  dominions  under 
Augustus. — Universal  peace  :  Pax  Romana,  ....  292 

CHAPTER  XL. 

The  great  cities  of  the  Roman  empire.— The  cities  of  Greece  :  Corinth,  Sparta,  Athens, 
Delos.— The  cities  of  Asia  :  Ephesus  and  others. — Antioch  in  Syria.— The  Ore- 


CONTENTS.  5 

cian  cities  in  Italy  :  The  cities  on  the  Campanian  coast.— Approach  to  Rome.— 
The  hills  of  Rome. — The  valleys  of  Rome.— The  Forum,  Velabrum,  &c.— The 
Transtiberine. — The  Campus  Martius. — The  streets  and  domestic  architecture  of 
Rome. — The  Domus  and  Insute. — Population  estimated  :  1.  From  the  area  of  the 
city.  2.  From  the  number  of  houses.  3.  From  the  number  of  recipients  of  grain. 
— Concluding  remarks,  ........  349 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

Life  in  Rome.— Thronging  of  the  streets.— Places  of  recreation. — Theatres,  circus,  and 
amphitheatres. — Exhibitions  of  wild  beasts  and  gladiators. — Baths. — The  day  of  a 
Roman  noble  :  The  Forum,  the  Campus,  the  bath,  and  the  supper. — Custom  of 
recitation.— The  schools  of  the  rhetoricians.— Authors  :  Livy,  Virgil,  Horace,  Pro- 
pertius,  Tibullus,  Ovid,  each  reflecting  in  his  own  way  the  sentiments  of  the 
Augustan  age,  .........  405 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

ANTICIPATIONS    OF    CONSTITUTIONAL    MONARCHY. — INDIFFERENCE   OF   THE    MASS 
OF   THE    CITIZENS   ON   POLITICAL   QUESTIONS. — AUGUSTUS  STUDIES  TO  REVIVE 

THE   NATIONAL   SENTIMENT. HIS   CONSERVATION    OF   THE    PATRICIAN    CASTE: 

OF   THE    RELIGIOUS    CEREMONIAL. RESTORATION    OF    TEMPLES   AND   SPECIAL 

CULTS. — CONSERVATION    OF    THE    RIGHTS   OF    PROPERTY  :     OF   MATRIMONY. 

LEGISLATIVE    MEASURES   TO    ENCOURAGE   MARRIAGE. REGULATIONS  FOR  THE 

DISTINCTION   OF   CLASSES. — JURISPRUDENCE   OF   AUGUSTUS. — COMPLETION  OF 

HIS    POLICY. HIS    PERSONAL   POPULARITY    NOT    DISTURBED    BY   OCCASIONAL 

SEVERITY. DISGRACE   AND    DEATH    OF    CORNELIUS    GALLUS. THE     JUBILEE 

OF    THE    ROMAN   PEOPLE. CONSIDERATIONS    ON    THE    AUTHENTICITY   OF   THE 

IMPERIAL    HISTORY. 

rpHE  noble  fragment  we  have  lately  recovered  of  Cicero's 
-L   treatise  on  Commonwealths  breaks  off  with  a  warm  eulo- 
gium  on  a  limited  or  constitutional  monarchy,  de-  The  Roman 
livered  in  the  person  of  the  younger  Africanus,  coSutionai 
but  supposed,  not  unreasonably,  to  convey  the  monarchy- 
genuine  sentiments  of  the  writer  himself.    There  are  certain 
points  of  similarity  in  the  position  of  these  illustrious  states- 
men which,  it  may  be  presumed,  did  not  escape  the  observa- 
tion of  the  political  philosopher :  both  began  their  career  in 
the  interest  of  the  people,  and  finished  it  as  champions  of  the 
oligarchy ;    both  were   conspicuous   in  their   opposition  to 
demagogues ;  both  denounced  agrarian  levellers ;  both  pro- 


g  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

fessed  to  form  themselves  on  the  model  of  Roman  antiquity, 
while  they  cherished  the  arts  and  literature  of  Greece,  and 
boasted  their  insight  into  its  national  character.  Accordingly 
we  may  readily  believe  that  the  experience  of  Scipio  actually 
suggested  to  him  the  thoughts  which  are  here  ascribed  to 
him  by  his  later  admirer.  While  the  popular  notion  of  mon- 
archy among  the  Romans  was  simply  that  of  a  despotic  au- 
tocracy, and  the  traditional  colours  in  which  they  painted  the 
tyrant  Tarquin  received  a  deeper  shade  from  their  actual  ac- 
quaintance with  an  Antiochus  or  an  Orodes,  more  reflecting 
minds  speculated,  we  may  conceive,  from  an  early  period,  on 
the  idea  of  a  legal  sovereignty,  in  which  the  prerogatives  of 
the  people  should  be  delegated,  on  fixed  principles,  to  a  mag- 
istrate of  its  own  choice.  If  their  experience  could  discover 
no  distinct  examples  of  this  happy  polity,  their  imaginations 
at  least  were  not  idle ;  and  such  perhaps  was  the  shadowy 
conception  they  formed  to  themselves  of  the  original  common- 
wealth of  Rome,  the  free  state  of  a  Romulus,  a  Nuina,  a  Tul- 
lus,  and  a  Servius.1  However  this  may  be,  the  most  perfect 
government,  in  the  view,  we  may  believe,  of  the  wisest  of  the 
Romans,  was  a  just  combination  of  popular  and  aristocratic 
authority,  subjected  by  mutual  concession  to  the  control  of  a 
single  hand.  It  was  the  government  by  centuries  and  curies, 
by  a  senate  and  a  king.  We  may  easily  imagine  that  many 
of  the  most  earnest  thinkers  of  the  later  republic, — when  they 
saw  every  form  and  institution  torn  in  pieces  by  the  furious 
ambition  of  demagogues  and  nobles,  when  consuls  vied  with 

1  Cic.  de  Republ.  iii.  35. :  "  Hie  Scipio,  Agnosco,  inquit,  tuum  morcm 
istum,  Spuri,  tarn  aversurn  a  ratione  popular!.  Sed  quanquam  potest  id  lenius 
ferri  quam  tu  soles  ferre,  tamen  assentior  nullum  esse  de  tribus  his  generibus 
quod  sit  probandum  minus.  Illud  tamen  non  assentior  tibi  praestare  regi  opti- 
mates.  Si  enim  sapientia  est  quae  gubernat  rem  publicam,  quid  tandem  inter- 
est hsec  in  unone  sit  an  in  pluribus  ?  Sed  errore  quodarn  fallimur  in  dispu- 
tando.  Cum  enim  optimates  appellantur  nihil  potest  videri  praestabilius.  Quid 
enim  optimo  melius  cogitari  potest  ?  Cum  autem  regis  est  facta  mentio  occur- 
rit  animis  rex  etiam  injustus :  nos  autem  de  injusto  rege  nihil  loquimur  nunc, 
cum  de  ipsa  regali  republica  quaerimus.  Quare  cogitato  Romulum  aut  Pom- 
pilium  aut  Tullum  regem ;  forsan  non  tarn  illius  to  rei  publicoe  pcenitebit." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  9 

tribunes  in  trampling  upon  the  laws,  and  imperators  and  trium- 
virs divided  the  empire  with  their  swords, — turned  often  with 
a  sigh  to  that  pleasing  ideal  of  a  political  Utopia,  where  the 
king  was  moderate,  the  senate  wise,  the  people  devoted,  and 
the  subjects  satisfied. 

But  in  the  eighth  century  of  the  city  it  was  too  late  to  realize 
any  such  dream  as  this.  The  most  perfect  system  of  checks 
and  balances  would  have  fallen  to  pieces  in  the  Too  Jate  to  ap_ 
hands  of  a  corrupt  and  degenerate  people.  The  SmlV^Aulns- 
time  for  a  fair  experiment  on  constitutional  mon-  tus- 
archy  had  passed  for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  The  younger 
Scipio,  when  he  prophesied  the  downfall  of  his  country,  was 
not  unaware  that  even  in  his  own  day  the  vices  of  the  oligarchy 
had  provoked  the  re-action  of  democracy,  and  that  their  differ- 
ences had  become  too  inveterate  for  equal  arbitration.  A  few 
generations  earlier,  perhaps,  Rome,  free  and  victorious,  was 
still  pure  and  honest  enough  to  yield  obedience  to  authority, 
and  might  have  offered  to  the  world  an  illustrious  example  of 
submission  to  a  self-imposed  monarchy.  But  when  once  a 
Gracchus  and  a  Drusus  had  given  the  reins  to  democratical  agi- 
tation, no  such  change  could  transpire  without  exciting  unap- 
peasable ambitions,  and  plunging  the  state  into  the  direst  con- 
vulsions. When  the  republic,  after  a  brief  and  restless  inter- 
val, fell  at  last  under  the  sway  of  an  armed  chief  like  Marius 
or  China,  the  character  both  of  the  men  and  of  the  tunes  for- 
bade the  hope  that  monarchy  might  avert  the  overthrow  of 
freedom.  Nevertheless,  as  monarchy  had  now  become  inevi- 
table, better  that  Marius  should  have  been  the  first  of  the  em- 
perors than  Caesar,  while  the  Roman  mind  was  still  vigorous, 
capable  of  receiving  a  new  impulse  and  assimilating  another 
polity.  Such  he  undoubtedly  would  have  been,  and- the-  his- 
tory of  the  empire  would  have  dated  from  the  auspicious  ter- 
mination of  the  Social  wars,  but  for  the  successful  reprisals 
of  Sulla,  and  his  resolute  reconstruction  of  the  broken  rule  of 
the  oligarchy.  This  counter-revolution  stayed  abruptly  the 
natural  progress  of  events,  and  delayed  for  fifty  years  the 
doom  of  the  commonwealth.  But  the  system  of  Sulla  can 


10  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

only  be  considered  as  a  political  anachronism.  It  had  no 
rightful  claim  to  exist ;  it  was  the  monstrous  creation  of  the 
sword,  repugnant  to  the  views  and  aspirations  of  the  great 
mass  of  Romans  and  Italians,  as  well  as  formidable  to  the 
provinces.  It  avowed  its  determination  to  control  the  de- 
velopment of  society,  and  stop  the  political  education  of  man- 
kind. Hateful  as  it  was,  the  victories  of  Pompeius  availed  to 
sustain  it  through  one  generation,  while  the  current  of  men's 
thoughts  was  diverted  from  it  by  the  conquest  of  Asia,  the 
glare  of  foreign  wealth,  and  the  allurements  of  foreign  lux- 
ury. But  its  foundations  meanwhile  were  silently  crumbling 
away  in  the  decay  of  the  old  noble  families,  the  decline  of  public 
virtue,  and  the  scarce  disguised  treachery  of  some  of  its  most 
conspicuous  supporters.  "When  Cassar  arose  to  strike  the 
long-expected  blow  it  fell  in  helpless  impotence,  and  the  vio- 
lence of  a  rebel's  hand  anticipated  by  a  brief  period  the  strug- 
Yet  the  best  gles  of  its  natural  dissolution.  We  indeed  can 
n<rtde"pairdof  see  that  the  Csesarean  revolution  came  too  late 
**•  to  save  the  remains  of  national  virtue ;  but  to 

despair  of  the  republic  was  a  crime  with  the  Romans,  and  by 
a  Messala  and  a  Pollio,  and  a  few  of  the  noblest  spirits 
of  their  age,  Octavius,  we  may  feel  assured,  was  fondly  re- 
garded as  the  deliverer  for  whom  the  best  and  wisest  citizens 
had  been  looking  for  an  hundred  years.  The  mildness  of  his 
sway  in  Italy,  the  firmness  with  which  he  had  opposed  intes- 
tine commotion  and  foreign  aggression,  the  respect  he  had 
evinced  for  certain  traditions  of  public  policy,  on  which  the 
safety  and  good  order  of  the  state  were  supposed  to  rest,  led 
them  to  indulge  the  hope  that  he  would  continue  to  preserve 
all  that  was  good  hi  the  old  consular  government,  while  he 
held  it  together  with  the  strong  hand  of  the  imperator.  The 
reflections  indeed  of  the  mass  of  the  citizens  were  far  less 
deep  or  philosophical.  The  decrees  of  the  senate  and  the 
public  demonstrations  of  the  populace  have  made  us  already 
familiar  with  the  outward  manifestation  of  joy  and  thankful- 
ness which  hailed  the  victories  both  of  Julius  Caesar  and  of 
his  successor.  Yet  such  expressions  of  popular  sentiment  may 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  H 

easily  be  feigned,  and  in  these  instances  we  may  be  disposed 
perhaps  at  first  sight  to  call  their  genuineness  in  question. 
Can  it  be  true,  we  ask,  that  the  Roman  people,  so  proud  of 
their  freedom,  so  jealous  of  their  rulers,  so  confident  in  them- 
selves, could  have  really  rejoiced  in  the  triumph  of  the  sword 
over  the  guardians  and  pledges  of  their  laws  ?  Or  did  they 
indulge  the  vain  imagination  that  the  victors  of  Actium  and 
Pharsalia,  the  men  who  had  hunted  to  death  a  Cicero  and  a 
Cato,  would  restore  the  liberties  they  had  wrested  from  the 
devoted  champions  of  the  republic  ?  May  we  not  rather  sup- 
pose that  the  mass  of  the  citizens  were  prepared  in  fact  to 
surrender  even  more  than  was  demanded  of  them,  and  that 
they  received  back  with  surprise  the  present  made  them  by 
the  usurpers  of  the  names  and  forms  of  the  commonwealth  ? 
In  order  to  answer  these  questions  we  must  take  a  wider  sur- 
vey of  the  state  of  public  opinion  at  the  time. 

It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  how  nearly  passive  the  mass 
of  the  Roman  people  had  long  been  under  the  sway  of  fac- 
tions and  political  intriguers.  Far  distant  was  the  indifference  of 
period  when  the  great  body  of  the  citizens  was  ^ff^^d 
wont  to  rise  at  the  bidding  of  some  trusted  lead-  «iuestion8- 
er,  or  at  the  dictates  of  a  common  sympathy,  and  express 
their  will  by  a  secession  to  the  Sacred  Mount,  or  a  sullen  re- 
fusal to  enlist  in  the  legions.  Throughout  the  horrors  of  the 
Marian  and  Sullan  revolutions,  while  Roman  blood  was  flow- 
ing in  torrents,  and  no  man's  throat  was  secure  from  the  gripe 
of  the  assassin,  they  looked  on  with  palsied  apathy,  and  sub- 
mitted to  the  reign  of  terror  almost  without  a  murmur. 
Habits  of  camp  discipline  and  familiarity  with  the  use  of  arms 
seem,  from  manifold  experience,  to  be  rather  unfavourable 
than  otherwise  to  the  development  of  civil  courage  and  self- 
reliance  at  home.  During  the  struggles  of  Cassar  and  Pom- 
peius  the  same  populace  continued  equally  inert,  though  the 
success  of  either  the  one  or  the  other  might  be  the  signal  for 
a  second  series  of  proscriptions.  And  when  those  proscrip- 
tions were  actually  repeated  at  the  bidding  of  the  triumvirs, 
they  were  found  not  less  patient  of  outrage  and  massacre  than 


12  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

ever.  They  seem  to  have  utterly  renounced  the  power  of  as- 
serting any  principle  or  any  wish  of  their  own ;  the  love  of 
life  itself  seems  to  have  degenerated  into  a  mere  animal  in- 
stinct. We  have  seen  how,  throughout  the  civil  wars,  it  was 
never  from  the  capital,  nor  even  from  Italy,  that  the  im- 
pulse was  given  to  the  leading  movements  of  parties :  Caesar 
armed  himself  in  Gaul,  Pompeius  in  the  East,  Cato  in  Africa, 
Cnaeus  in  Spain.  Antonius  and  his  rivals  depended  solely 
upon  their  mercenary  legions,  until,  in  the  final  struggle,  the 
aggression  of  a  foreign  power  aroused  the  spirit  of  the  con- 
quering republic,  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  Octavius  with 
a  crowning  manifestation  of  national  sentiment.  This  was 
the  last  spontaneous  levy  of  the  Roman  people ;  the  effort 
was  momentary  and  the  victory  immediate ;  but  they  had 
long  resigned  themselves  to  the  tyranny  of  any  ruler,  provided 
only  he  were  a  Roman  like  themselves.  Their  only  hope,  at 
the  crisis  of  each  succeeding  usurpation,  was  that  the  con- 
queror would  be  more  merciful  than  Sulla ;  and  when  the  last 
candidate  for  empire  returned  in  triumph  to  their  presence, 
the  assurance  that  he  had  fought  their  own  battle,  that  he 
was  not  merely  the  victor  of  a  civil  fray,  but  the  vanquisher 
of  a  foreign  foe,  allowed  them  to  hope  that  his  success 
would  be  as  bloodless  as  it  was  glorious.  In  considering  the 
history  of  Rome  we  cannot  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  im- 
pression made  upon  the  national  mind  by  the  first  proscrip- 
tions. To  this  frightful  period  its  imaginations  were  con- 
stantly recurring ;  the  undying  recollection  of  these  horrors 
survived  every  new  phase  of  revolution,  and  taught  the  Ro- 
mans to  acquiesce  in  each  successive  act  of  violence  as  a  relief 
from  the  recollections  of  the  past. 

To  the  mass  of  the  Romans,  then,  it  was  enough  to  be 

spared  from  massacre  and  confiscation.    They  were  ready  to 

exalt  to  the  skies  the  usurper  who  refrained  from 

Degradation  of  .  . 

Roman  senti-     taking  all  their  lives  and  properties.     This,  in 

mfxtur/of e      their  eyes,  was  the  merit  of  Octavius,  and  for  this 

they  met  him  at  the  gates  of  the  city  and  led  him 

in  triumph  to  the  Capitol  and  the  temples  of  the  gods. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  ^3 

Though  dignified  with  the  name  of  Romans,  the  people,  it 
must  be  remembered,  who  disgraced  a  title  consecrated  to 
freedom  and  self-reliance,  had  in  fact  little  in  common  with 
the  men  who  first  rendered  it  illustrious.  The  result  of  the 
great  "struggle  between  the  republic  and  her  allies  seventy 
years  before,  had  mingled  in  one  current  the  blood  of  the 
Romans  and  the  Italians.  Yet  between  these  new  compa- 
triots there  was  at  least  a  certain  affinity  in  language,  origin, 
and  institutions.1  Far  more  fatal  to  the  homogeneity  of  the 
Roman  race  was  the  repeated  enfranchisement  of  foreign 
slaves  drawn  from  eveiy  quarter  of  the  known  world, — the 
supple  Syrian,  the  sensual  German,  the  moody  and  ungovern- 
able Moor.  Various  methods,  indeed,  were  devised  to  im- 
pede the  progress  of  these  despised  aliens  to  the  highest  offices 
of  the  state ;  even  the  complete  franchise  of  the  city  was 
doled  out  to  them  with  jealous  precaution  :  but  the  necessi- 
ties of  political  chiefs  overleaped  every  restraint,  and  Sulla 
himself,  the  champion  of  exclusion,  admitted  a  host  of  for- 
eign-born clients  into  his  own  Cornelian  gens.  Ca?sar  took 
a  bolder  and  more  decisive  step,  but  not  before  the  times  were 
ripe  for  it,  in  admitting  foreigners  into  the  senate  itself ;  and 
the  successors  to  his  policy  and  power  continued  to  replenish 
it.  after  every  massacre,  with  members  of  the  meanest  extrac- 
tion. The  streets  of  Rome,  which  had  witnessed  the  triumphs 
of  the  Scipios  and  jEmilii,  were  thronged  with  the  descend- 
ants of  their  captives ;  the  villas  of  the  conquerors  of  Sam- 
nium  and  Carthage  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  owners 
who  a  few  years  before  could  hardly  have  pronounced  their 
names. 

The  long  settled  communities  of  modern  civilization  can 
scarcely  appreciate  perhaps  the  extent  of  this 

j    ix        +•  f  j    ti       i       T»  i'^      1  Modern  Enro- 

adulteration  01  race  and  blood.    .Political  revo-  poan  commu- 

i    , .  ••  ..  ,  -it  •     nities  afford  no 

unions  we  nave  witnessed  ;   social  and  economi-  parallel  to  this 
cal  changes,  vast  in  extent  and  unprecedented  in 

1  The  most  conspicuous  monuments  of  early  Roman  literature  are  in  almost 
every  case  the  work  of  Italians  rather  than  of  genuine  Romans ;  yet  the  true 
Roman  sentiment  is  not  the  less  unmistakeably  impressed  upon  them. 


14  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

character,  have  occurred  at  our  very  doors  ;  but  upon  the  physi- 
cal elements  of  the  population  affected  by  them,  no  impres- 
sion has  been  made.  The  people  of  modern  Europe,  there- 
fore, can  admit  of  no  comparison  in  respect  of  physical  change 
with  the  Romans  of  the  age  of  Augustus.  The  case,  however, 
is  different  in  the  opposite  hemisphere,  where  the  native  race 
is  overwhelmed  from  one  generation  to  another  by  a  constant 
stream  of  foreign  immigration.  The  movement  of  the  physical 
elements  of  Roman  society  may  not  inaptly  be  compared,  how- 
ever different  the  causes  from  which  it  arose,  with  that  in  the 
population  of  North  America.  And  accordingly  in  America 
we  observe  a  rapid  change  and  disintegration  of  national 
sentiment  constantly  in  progress  :  the  ideas  of  one  decade  of 
years  become  obsolete  in  the  next ;  manners  and  fashions  are 
ever  fluctuating ;  even  the  language  partakes  of  the  general 
instability,  though  retained  on  its  foundations  by  the  influence 
of  its  European  sister ;  a  few  fixed  principles  of  polity,  be- 
longing perhaps  to  an  exceptional  state  of  social  development, 
alone  remain,  like  landmarks,  overtopping  the  ceaseless  flow 
of  thoughts  and  prejudices  around  them.  But  the  local  fixity 
and  isolation  of  the  Roman  people  in  its  earlier  stages  had 
imparted  a  similar  character  to  its  institutions,  and  maintained 
them  in  their  native  forms  for  several  ages  before  the  era  of 
movement  had  commenced.  Its  notions  of  religion  and  pol- 
ity, interweaved  and  entangled  together,  had  sunk,  as  it  were, 
into  the  very  soil ;  its  habits  of  thought  on  these  matters, 
which  constituted  almost  its  whole  life,  were  cast  in  a  mould 
of  iron.  The  Romans,  as  has  been  often  said,  were  a  nation 
of  formalists ;  not  less  so  than  the  Jews  themselves ;  nor,  as 
far  as  we  know,  were  their  prejudices  shaken,  or  their  minds 
recalled  from  the  servitude  of  the  letter,  by  any  spiritual  ex- 
positions of  prophets  or  philosophers.  Among  the  Romans, 
the  men  of  higher  light  and  deeper  insight,  who  impugned 
the  accredited  faith  of  the  people,  carefully  abstained  from 
any  attack  upon  their  formulas.  Scsevola,  Varro,  and  Cicero, 
avowed  the  principle,  that  the  errors  of  the  vulgar,  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  wise,  should  be  permitted  to  co-exist  with 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  15 

mutual  toleration.1  But  the  men  who  were  most  deeply  im- 
bued with  these  forms  and  prejudices,  even  the  classes  which 
were  their  acknowledged  depositaries,  were  almost  extin- 
guished by  war  and  proscription ;  their  places  became  occu- 
pied by  strangers,  men  for  the  most  part  who  were  prepared, 
on  entering  their  adopted  city,  to  renounce  the  ideas  of  that 
from  which  they  came,  without  taking  much  interest  in  the 
acquisition  of  the  new.  They  were  proud  indeed  of  inherit- 
ing the  glorious  name  of  Romans,  and  of  claiming  affinity 
with  the  remnant  of  the  genuine  citizens ;  but  their  claims 
were  rejected  perhaps  not  less  contemptuously  by  the  real  de- 
scendants of  Quirinus  than  those  of  the  Samaritans  by  the 
tribes  of  Benjamin  and  Judah. 

The  Roman  regarded  himself  in  two  very  different  lights, 
according  as  he  reflected  on  his  political  or  his  social  posi- 
tion. On  the  one  hand,  soaring  on  the  wings  of  Expansion  of 
imagination,  he  vaunted  himself  as  the  favourite  ^eai "fBonfan 
of  the  gods,  the  child  of  destiny,  appointed  to  life< 
achieve  a  vast  mission,  no  less  than  the  reduction  of  the  world 
to  political  unity ;  to  beat  down  by  force  all  opposition  of 
arms,  and  constrain  men  to  the  simple  routine  of  peaceful  oc- 
cupations.2 On  the  other,  he  gloated  with  mere  prosaic  in- 
terest on  the  material  gains  of  conquest.  He  regarded  realms 
and  empires  as  his  domain,  and  worked  out  the  resources  of 
a  province  with  the  same  zest  as  his  ancestor  had  devoted  to 
tilling  his  modest  glebe.  He  remembered,  on  a  wider  theatre, 
how  the  master  of  the  household  had  daily  appeased  the  gods 
with  corn  and  oil,  with  a  prayer  or  a  charm ;  how  he  had  fed 
his  slaves  at  his  own  board,  and  dispensed  to  them  with  equal 
care,  both  their  tasks  and  their  recreations  ;  how  he  had  kept 
the  key  of  his  wine-bin  at  his  girdle,  and  chastised  his  con- 

1  Augustin.  Civ.  Dei,  iv.  27. :  "  Ease  pontifex  (Scacvola)  nosse  populos  non 
vult ;  nam  falsa  esse  non  putat.  Expedire  igitur  existimat  falli  in  religione 
civitates.  Quod  dicere  etiara  in  libris  rerum  divinarum  ipse  Varro  non  dubi- 
tat."  Comp.  iv.  31.  This  is  the  principle  put  forth  by  Cicero  throughout  his 
treatises  de  Divinatione  and  de  Hatura  Deorum. 

1  Virg.  JEn.  vi. ;  "  Tu  regere  imperio  populos,"  etc. 


16  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

sort,  even  to  the  death,  if  she  ventured  to  purloin  it  from  his 
side.  Such  in  the  last  age  of  the  republic  was  still  the  ideal 
of  Roman  life,  the  life  of  a  Curius  or  Cincinnatus  expanded 
to  the  proportions  of  a  Lentulus  or  a  Lucullus.  Such  was  the 
life,  it  was  fondly  proclaimed,  of  Remus  and  his  brother,  of 
the  sturdy  sons  of  Latium  and  Sabellia.  Thus  the  valiant 
Etruscans  had  waxed  in  glory  and  power,  second  only  to  the 
Romans  themselves ;  thus  Rome  had  become  of  all  created 
things  the  fairest  and  the  strongest.1 

The  drop  of  pious  sentiment  enshrined  in  either  view 
served  in  some  measure  to  purify  the  turbid  elements  of 
signs  of  mate-  ^hich  at  this  period  the  mass  of  the  Roman 
rial  decay.  people  was  composed.  Some  moments  there  were 
in  the  existence  of  the  contemporaries  of  the  second  trium- 
virate, when  all  the  wealth  of  Asia  and  elegance  of  Greece 
seemed  inadequate  to  compensate  for  the  innocence  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  ancient  republic.  At  such  times  the  sense  of 
lost  freedom  and  forfeited  self-esteem  was  aggravated  l»y  a 
consciousness  of  material  decay.  Throughout  Italy  the  spolia- 
tion of  so  many  estates  and  the  insecurity  of  all  had  ca<t  a 
blight  upon  agriculture ;  the  harvests  failed  to  support  a 
population  diminished  by  war  and  misery ;  the  wall?  of  cities 
were  crumbling  into  ruin  ;  the  increase  of  brigandage  cut  off 
the  communications  between  them,  while  it  redoubled  the  anx- 
iety of  the  masters  for  the  safe  custody  of  their  sullen  slaves. 
In  Rome  itself  the  invasion  of  barbarism  was  no  less  apparent. 
While  the  gratification  of  the  multitude  was  consulted  in  the 

Virg.  Georg.  ii.  nit. :  "  Hanc  olim  veteres  vitam  coluere  Sabini,"  kc. 
This  ideal  was  of  a  singularly  domestic  character.  The  tutelary  divinities  of 
their  country  were  styled  by  the  Romans  "  gods  of  their  fathers,"  and  "  home- 
born  "  (di  patrii  indigetes) ;  their  country  itself  was  the  "  fatherland  "  (patria) ; 
their  most  cherished  usages  were  the  "  custom  of  their  elders  "  (mos  majorum). 
They  continued  to  the  last  to  denominate  the  metropolis  of  their  world-wide 
empire  "  the  town "  (urbs),  while  all  foreign  lands,  far  or  near,  were  simply 
" bevond  the  gates"  (foris).  Much  confusion  is  caused  by  our  common  trans- 
lation of  urb»  by  "  city,"  a  designation  which  ought  in  strictness  to  be  confined 
to  the  political  community  (civitas).  Urbs,  whatever  be  its  derivation,  means 
the  town  or  inhabited  enclosure. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  -tf 

erection  of  gorgeous  edifices  for  public  entertainment,  the 
temples  of  the  gods  were  suffered  to  decay,  their  images  were 
stained  with  smoke  and  damp,  their  worship  was  neglected, 
their  services  forgotten,  the  holy  rites  of  wedlock  were  slighted, 
and  a  new  race  of  citizens  was  springing  into  life  whose  will 
was  their  only  law,  and  to  whom  the  most  venerable  prescrip- 
tions of  antiquity  were  no  better  than  a  dusty  parchment. 

But  in  the  midst  of  this  desolation,  the  legislator  who 
sought  to  revive  the  pure  sentiments  of  antiquity  might  ap- 
peal to  a  witness  in  their  favour  which  no  child 

r  The.  fundamen- 

of  Quirinus  could  venture  to  impugn.    To  as-  tai  principle  of 

the  Roman  re- 

cnbe  to  mere  chance  the  imperial  career  of  the  Hgfon  stui  sur- 
republic,  or  even  to  the  virtues  of  the  citizens 
themselves,  apart  from  the  holy  influence  of  their  laws  and 
institutions,  was  a  blasphemy  from  which  the  feelings  of  every 
genuine  Roman  revolted.  Deep  and  firm  was  his  persuasion 
that  his  city  owed  its  prosperity  to  the  divine  principle  of  its 
constitution.  The  empire  of  Rome  was  a  standing  evidence  in 
his  view  to  the  truth  of  the  Roman  religion,  in  its  widest 
sense,  as  the  foundation  of  its  laws  and  usages.  Already 
men's  minds  were  becoming  weaned  from  positive  belief  in 
the  concrete  divinities  of  Olympus,  and  fixing  themselves 
more  and  more  upon  the  abstraction  of  the  Roman  majesty, 
which  their  imaginations  were  beginning  to  invest  with  the 
form  and  personality  of  an  actual  goddess.1 

It  was  the  policy  of  the  new  master  of  the  republic  to 
throw  himself  upon  this  deep  conservative  feeling,  to  revive 
the  usages  of  the  ancient  days,  and  assimilate  the  August™ 
fresh  elements  of  the  population  to  the  remnant  %£ 
of  its  original  stock.  The  victories  of  Actium  *igo 
and  Alexandria  soon  proved  to  be  something  more  than  the 
rout  of  a  foreign  foe  or  the  defeat  of  a  barbaric  invasion. 
"Not  only  was  Isis  overthrown,  and  Anubis  driven  howling  to 
his  native  desert ;  the  majesty  of  the  gods  of  Rome  was  not 

1  The  Smyrnseans  boasted  that  they  had  been  the  first  to  erect  a  temple  to 
TJrbs  Roma.  This  was  in  the  consulship  of  the  elder  Cato,  A.  u.  558.  Tac. 
Ann.  iv.  56. 

VOL.  iv. — 2 


18  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

only  vindicated,  but  restored  to  honour  and  recommended 
with  a  powerful  voice  to  the  veneration  of  the  citizens.  The 
conqueror  commenced  his  career  of  empire  by  the  restoration 
of  the  ancient  cult.  Religious  forms  were  entwined  about 
all  the  public  and  private  life  of  the  primitive  Roman.  The 
acts  of  every  popular  assembly  were  hallowed  by  ceremonial 
observances ;  the  conduct  of  war  abroad  and  of  government 
at  home  was  alike  dependent  upon  auspices  and  omens ;  each 
particular  family  partook  of  the  rites  of  the  gens  to  which  it 
belonged,  and  cherished  the  domestic  worship  of  some  god  or 
hero  from  whom  it  derived  its  name  or  lineage.  Thus,  after 
the  extinction  in  the  fifth  century  of  the  family  of  Potitius, 
its  first  founder,  the  cult  of  Hercules  had  been  appropriated 
to  the  Pinarii,  with  whom  Julius  Cajsar  was  himself  con- 
nected.1 The  Julii  claimed  the  special  ministry  of  Venus, 
the  Nautii  worshipped  Minerva,  the  Aurelii  Apollo,  the  Va- 
lerii  Pluto,  while  Diana  was  honoured  by  the  Calpurnii,  Nep- 
tune by  the  Servilii.*  Some  families  venerated  certain  heroes 
of  their  own  race,  as  the  Horatii,  who  performed  religious 
rites  in  honour  of  the  brave  Horatius  who  kept  the  bridge 
against  Porsena  and  the  Tarquins ;  and  the  Julii,  who  adopted 
as  their  patron  the  greatest  of  their  name,  the  deified  dicta- 
tor. On  stated  anniversaries  the  rites  of  these  divinities  were 
celebrated  by  the  representatives  of  the  gens  in  a  private 
chapel ;  and  though  the  presence  of  the  members  in  general 
was  not  required  at  the  ceremony,  the  favour  of  the  guardian 
saint  was  supposed  to  be  extended  to  all.  It  was  extended, 
indeed,  much  farther.  The  welfare  of  the  commonwealth 
itself  was  held  to  be  closely  connected  with  the  due  observance 
of  these  particular  cults,  and  the  law  maintained  a  jealous 
watch  over  their  perpetuation ;  the  descent  of  property  was 
burdened  or  illustrated  with  the  obligation  to  preserve  them 

1  Liv.  i.  7.  5x.  29. :  "  Sacra  penes  Pinarios  resedisse  eosque  mysteria  fide- 
liter  custodisse."  From  this  passage  compared  with  Virgil,  ^En.  viii.  270.,  it 
would  seem  probable  that  the  Pinarii  still  retained  this  privilege,  though  Dio 
nysius,  i.  40.,  denies  it. 

s  See  Becker,  Handbuch  der  Romischen  Alterthumer,  ii.  1.  45. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  }9 

in  force.  The  annals  of  these  patrician  races  were  written 
for  their  especial  honour,  and  the  public  traditions  of  the  com- 
monwealth itself  were  corrupted  to  glorify  the  most  illus- 
trious of  its  houses.  The  images  or  waxen  busts  of  the  de- 
ceased, ranged  along  the  walls  of  the  mansion  in  the  city, 
were  silent  but  expressive  monuments  of  the  family  history ; 
and  whenever  a  chief  of  the  house  was  carried  forth  to  his 
sepulchre  on  the  Flaminian  or  Latin  Way,  these  effigies  of  his 
renowned  ancestors,  labelled  for  all  to  recognise  them,  were 
borne  in  procession  before  him,  and  reminded  the  admiring 
citizens  of  the  proudest  glories  of  their  history. 

Accordingly  the  patricians  of  the  primitive  republic  con- 
stituted a  dominant  caste,  jealous  of  its  peculiar  prerogatives, 
and  admitting  no  access  to  its  own  divine  inheri- 

.  __  Conservation 

tance  of  dignity  and  authority.  These  preten-  of  the  patrician 
sions  had  been  gradually  abated  by  the  encroach- 
ment of  the  plebeians  ;  the  loss  of  privilege  had  drawn  down 
with  it  many  august  but  impoverished  houses ;  and  not  a  few 
of  the  oldest  families  had  fallen  out  of  the  ranks  of  public 
office,  and  sunk  into  insignificance  among  the  herd  of  citizens. 
While  they  retained  their  legitimate  place  at  the  head  of  the 
legions,  the  constant  wars  of  the  republic  had  drained  them 
of  their  best  blood ;  and  when  the  new  nobility  of  the  com- 
mons forced  itself  into  command,  the  patricians  perished  not 
less  rapidly,  but  more  obscurely,  in  the  ranks.  It  was  about 
the  period  of  the  Gracchi  that  this  subsidence  of  the  old  aris- 
tocracy of  birth  began  first  to  be  remarked.  The  increase  of 
wealth  and  multiplication  of  offices  had  raised  a  number  of 
new  men  into  their  places,  while  those  that  still  remained  on 
the  arena  of  public  life  were  forced  to  compete  on  equal  terms 
with  their  upstart  rivals,  and,  except  in  the  possession  of  a 
few  honorary  distinctions,  the  patrician  was  only  distinguished 
from  the  rest  of  the  citizens  by  his  exclusion  from  the  tribune- 
ship  of  the  plebs.  The  wealthy  competitors  for  the  honours 
of  the  state  became  gradually  fused  into  one  common  aristoc- 
racy, to  which  office  alone  gave  a  title  of  admission.  The 
number  of  plebeian  houses  thus  exalted  by  participation  in 


20  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  curule  magistracies,  and  enrolled  by  the  censors  in  the  list 
of  the  senate,  soon  far  surpassed  the  remnant  of  the  patrician. 
This  new  aristocracy,  under  the  title  of  the  nobility,  or  the 
class  ennobled  by  public  service,  drew  a  broad  line  between 
itself  and  the  knights,  the  ignoble  rich,  whom  it  jealously  ex- 
cluded from  the  higher  functions  of  the  state.  But  this  no- 
bility again,  rich,  numerous,  and  powerful  as  it  was,  was  deci- 
mated in  its  turn  by  massacres  and  proscriptions.  Of  the 
patrician  houses  which  figure  in  the  early  history  of  Rome, 
the  greater  number  disappear  from  her  annals  after  the  Punic 
wars,  while  many  of  those  which  we  can  still  trace  there  have 
sunk  into  comparative  obscurity.  They  are  succeeded  in  the 
Fasti  by  a  long  series  of  plebeian  names ;  but  of  these,  again, 
few  survive  the  Civil  Wars,  and  the  establishment  of  the 
Empire.  The  houses  which  rose  to  distinction  after  this 
epoch  were  universally  of  plebeian  origin,  and  generally  little 
known  to  fame  at  an  earlier  period. 

The  custom,  indeed,  of  adoption,  invented  perhaps  from  a 
religious  motive,  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  gentile  cults, 
Principle  of  might  serve  to  maintain  the  existence  of  the 
adoption.  house,  and  its  name,  long  after  its  genuine  blood 
had  really  ceased  to  flow.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  this  contrivance  was  actually  of  much  avail ;  for  the 
facility  thus  given  for  preserving  the  legal  continuity  of  fam- 
ily existence  was  in  itself  fatal  to  the  real  perpetuation  of 
race.  The  pride  of  name  might  thus  be  satisfied  without  the 
propagation  of  lineal  successors,  or  submission  to  the  obliga- 
tions of  legitimate  marriage.  Thus  while,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  main  stem  of  the  Julian  gens  was  prolonged,  in  default 
of  natural  heirs,  by  the  adoption  of  an  Octavius,  its  collateral 
branches,  on  the  other,  once  widely  extended,  withered  wholly 
away,1  Besides  adoption,  however,  the  Romans  invented 

1  Lord  Mahon,  near  the  beginning  of  his  History  of  England,  has  given  a 
table  of  the  representatives  of  existing  English  houses  about  a  century  ago, 
which  shows  in  a  striking  manner  the  vitality  of  our  aristocratic  families,  main- 
tained as  they  are  solely  by  succession  in  blood  either  directly  or  collaterally. 
But  the  interval  has  been  a  period  of  unexampled  tranquillity  and  prosperity 
to  the  class  in  question. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  21 

another  method  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  gens  through  its 
clientele.  The  noble  Roman  was  authorized  to  confer  his 
name,  together  with  its  religious  privileges,  upon  the  enfran- 
chised foreigners  who  ranged  themselves  under  his  patronage. 
Even  the  slaves  whom  he  manumitted  were  allowed,  with  occa- 
sional restrictions,  to  enrol  themselves  in  his  clan.  Thus, 
with  the  exception  perhaps  of  the  Cornelian,  the  Julian  be- 
came under  Csesar  and  Augustus  the  most  extensive  of  any 
Roman  house.  It  had  its  offshoots  not  only  in  Rome  and 
Italy,  but  wherever  either  of  its  most  illustrious  patrons  had 
set  his  foot  and  established  his  personal  influence.  The 
Gauls,  the  Britons,  and  the  Iberians  more  particularly,  sought 
the  honour  of  this  distinguished  connexion,  which  was  libe- 
rally bestowed  on  chiefs  and  potentates,  on  philosophers  and 
statesmen,  on  artists  and  grammarians.  Though  the  dictator 
left  no  natural  offspring,  and  only  one  son  by  adoption,  the 
name  of  Julius  continues  frequently  to  recur  in  the  history 
of  the  Romans  as  long  as  they  retained  the  gentile  name  with 
its  appropriate  observances.1 

To  the  remnant  of  the  patrician  families,  it  has  just  been 
said,  certain  honorary  functions  were  still,  from  ancient  usage, 
attached.    Among  these  was  the  exalted  priest- 
hood of  the  Flamens.    For  the  perpetuation  of  patrician 
such  offices,  which  the  people  continued  to  regard 
with  superstitious  reverence,  or  from  the  vague  desire  so 
common  to  usurpers  to  surround  himself  with  the  ensigns  of 
the  polity  he  had  overthrown,  Julius  Caesar  had  introduced  a 
measure  for  increasing  the  number  of  patrician  houses.    By 
the  lex  Cassia  several  plebeian  gentes,  among  them  perhaps 
the  Octavia,  to  which  his  nephew  belonged,  and  the  Tullia,  so 
recently  illustrated  by  the  genius  of  Cicero,  were  called  up  to 
the  higher  caste.2    Augustus  followed  the  example  of  the 

1  The  kinsmen  of  the  great  Julius  Caesar,  of  whom  there  were  one  or  two 
branches  existing  in  his  time,  left  as  far  as  we  know  no  successors. 

2  The  elevation  of  the  young  Octaviua  to  the  patriciate  has  been  already 
mentioned  (ch.  xxx.) ;   that  of  Cicero  is  inferred  from  the  passage  of  Dion, 
xlvi.  22. :   tXeydels  vr'b  rov  Kattrapos  Kal  trteQfls,  ey  re  rovs  tviraTptSas  t-yypa- 


22  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

dictator  ;  but  in  this  case,  we  may  believe,  with  a  more  distinct 
and  deliberate  object.  The  political  nullity  of  the  patricians 
had  in  fact  abated  nothing  from  the  charm  which  popularly 
surrounded  them  ;  perhaps  they  had  even  gained  in  the  affec- 
tions of  the  people  what  they  had  lost  in  power.  The  mani- 
fest decay  of  those  illustrious  monuments  of  the  past,  the 
historical  families  of  the  republic,  had  excited  an  interest  even 
in  the  contemplative  spirit  of  an  Atticus,  who  had  devoted  a 
portion  of  his  abundant  leisure  to  explore  their  antiquities  and 
describe  their  genealogies.  The  archaeologist  Varro  had  writ- 
ten learnedly  upon  the  same  theme  ;  at  a  later  period  Vale- 
rius Messala,  the  intimate  friend  of  Augustus,  but  a  true  re- 
publican at  heart,  followed  in  the  same  track.1  A  subject 
which  occupied  the  thoughts  of  three  men  of  such  distinction 
we  may  well  imagine  to  have  been  generally  attractive. 

The  anxiety  of  Octavius  to  restore  the  due  consideration 
of  the  patrician  houses,  as  a  principle  of  public  conservation, 
outstripped  his  own  movements  on  his  return 
a-   homeward  from  the  East  at  the  close  of  724. 


trician  houses.     -rrn«i         ,'ii      r.        •,    •       ±1.  •  f    A    •       i. 

Vvhile  still  absent  in  the  provinces  01  Asia,  he 
directed  L.  Ssenius,  the  consul  suffect,  to  lay  a  measure  before 
the  senate  for  raising  several  plebeian  families  to  the  hon- 
ours of  the  patriciate.  The  law  itself,  to  which  the  senate 
dutifully  acceded,  and  which  the  tribes  were  content  to  regis- 
ter, was  dated  from  the  following  year,  when  the  emperor, 
resuming  his  place  in  the  capital,  accepted  the  powers  of  the 
censorship,  and  undertook  to  reconstitute  by  various  stringent 
enactments  the  several  orders  of  the  state.8  The  Romans 

<f>e)s.  Such  an  elevation  wag  not  simply  personal,  but  was  extended  to  the 
whole  gens.  It  seems  probable  that  these  two  cases  were  comprehended  along 
with  others  in  the  measure  of  the  dictator  which  bore  the  name  of  the  lex 
Cassia.  This  and  the  lex  Saenia  of  Augustus  are  referred  to  by  Tacitus,  Ann. 
xi.  25.  Comp.  Suet.  Jul.  41.  Dion,  xlix.  43.  lii.  42. 

1  The  etymological  writings  of  Atticus  are  referred  to  by  Corn.  Nepos, 
Aft.  18.  Varro  wrote  on  the  subject  of  families  which  claimed  a  Trojan  de- 
scent. Servius  on  Yirg.  jEn.  v.  117.  704.  On  the  work  of  Messala  and  its 
origin,  see  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXT.  2. 

a  L.  Ssenius  was  consul  suffect  with  M.  Tullius  Cicero,  son  of  the  orator, 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  Y24  :  but  the  law  which  bore  Ms  name,  and  was 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  23 

were  highly  gratified  by  the  respect  thus  paid  to  their  early 
associations.  The  national  traditions,  which  still  exercised,  as 
we  have  seen,  their  full  influence  over  the  mass  of  the  citizens, 
connected  the  majesty  of  the  republic  with  the  dignity  of  its 
highest  caste,  who  mediated  by  their  august  functions  be- 
tween the  state  and  the  celestial  hierarchy.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  the  patrician  houses  had  for  the  most  part  attached 
themselves  to  the  cult,  not  of  the  original  Italian  divinities, 
but  of  gods  of  comparatively  recent  and  foreign  importation. 
But  in  so  doing  they  had  only  followed  the  course  of  the 
religious  revolution  which  had  long  been  in  progress  at  Rome. 
Apollo,  Venus,  Neptune,  Hercules,  Pluto,  Diana,  and  at  least 
as  the  goddess  of  war,  Minerva  also,  had  been  unknown  to  the 
worship  of  the  early  Romans  ;  it  was  only  in  the  latter  ages 
of  the  republic  that  these  deities  were  honoured  with  temples 
and  priesthoods  at  all.1  The  principal  temples  at  Rome  had 
been  constructed  by  the  piety  of  victorious  imperators  ;  and 
to  the  posterity  they  had  ennobled  they  had  bequeathed,  as 
the  most  precious  of  heir-looms,  the  care  of  these  sacred  edi- 
fices. Few,  however,  of  their  descendants,  in  the  latter  days 
of  anarchy  and  irreligion,  had  displayed  the  zeal  of  the  noble 
Catulus  in  the  restoration  of  Jove's  temple  in  the  Capitol. 
The  shrines  of  the  gods,  as  has  been  said,  were  falling  on  all 
sides  into  ruin,  their  images  were  blackened  with  smoke,  or 
mouldering  with  damp.  The  sufferings  of  the  commonwealth 
were  willingly  ascribed  by  the  existing  generation  to  the  im- 
piety of  that  which  had  gone  before,  and  the  admonitions  of 
the  poet  were  hailed  with  general  acclamation  when  he  re- 
minded it  that  it  was  the  lord  of  mankind  only  because  it  was 
the  servant  of  the  gods.  This  pious  acknowledgment,  said 
Horace,  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  all  its  greatness.2  Au- 

introduced  by  him,  is  placed  under  the  following  year  by  Dion  Cassius,  lii. 
42. ;  to  which  Augustus  also  himself  refers  it,  Monum.  Ancyr.  2. :  "  Patri- 
ciorum  numerum  auxi  consul  v.  jussu  populi  et  senatus." 
1  See  Zumpt  in  his  little  tract  Religion  der  Roemer. 
a  Horace  in  the  well  known  passage,  Od.  iii.  6. : 
"  Delicta  majorum  immeritus  lues, 
Romane,  donee  templa  refeceris  .... 
Dis  te  minorem  quod  geris  imperas." 


24:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

gustus  perceived,  with  unerring  sagacity,  the  direction  of  the 
popular  sentiment,  and  at  once  placed  himself  at  its  head. 
The  duty  of  renovating  the  temples  had  lapsed,  by  the  death 
or  impoverishment  of  their  appointed  guardians,  to  the  nation 
itself,  and  he,  in  his  censorial  capacity,  was  the  keeper  of  the 
national  conscience.  Accordingly  he  restored  himself  the  tem- 
ple of  Jupiter  Feretrius  in  the  Capitol,  which  was  said  to  be 
the  most  ancient  in  Rome ;  he  erected  another  to  Jove  the 
Thunderer,  to  Cybele,  and  other  divinities.  He  encouraged 
Eestoration  of  *^e  nobles  to  vie  with  him  in  the  pious  work,  and 
temples.  instructed  Livia  to  repair  the  shrines  of  Juno,  the 

tutelary  guardian  of  Roman  womanhood.1  Up  to  this  period, 
the  god  Mars,  the  reputed  father  of  the  Roman  race,  had 
never,  it  is  said,  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  a  temple  within 
the  walls.  He  was  now  introduced  into  the  city,  which  he 
had  saved  from  overthrow  and  ruin ;  and  the  aid  he  had  lent 
in  bringing  the  murderers  of  Caesar  to  justice,  was  signalized 
by  the  title  of  Avenger,  by  which  he  was  now  specially  ad- 
dressed.8 There  still  remained,  however,  another  deity  in 
whom  the  emperor  retained  a  peculiar  interest.  Apollo  was 
the  patron  of  the  spot  which  had  given  a  name  to  his  great 
victory  of  Actium ;  Apollo  himself,  it  was  proclaimed,  had 
fought  for  Rome  and  for  Octavius  on  that  auspicious  day ; 
the  same  Apollo,  the  sun-god,  had  shuddered  in  his  bright 
career  at  the  murder  of  the  dictator,  and  had  terrified  the  na- 
tions by  the  eclipse  of  his  divine  countenance.8  The  courtiers 

1  Monum.  Ancyr.  4.  Comp.  Dion,  li.  22.  Ovid.  Fast.  i.  649.  v.  157. 
vi.  637.  At  ii.  63.  of  the  same  work  he  addresses  the  emperor  as  "  templo- 
rum  positor,  templorum  sancte  repostor :  "  and  Livy  (iv.  20.)  calls  him,  u  tem- 
plorum  omnium  conditor  aut  restitutor." 

9  The  temple  of  Mars  Ultor,  of  gigantic  proportions,  "  Et  deus  est  ingena 
et  opus,"  was  erected  in  the  new  forum  of  Augustus  at  the  foot  of  the  Capi- 
toline  and  Quirinal  hills.     Ovid  describes  it,  Fast.  v.  650.  foil. 
3  Virg.  Georg,  i.  446. : 

"  Hie  etiam  extincto  miseratus  Csesare  Roman, 
Cum  caput  obscura  nitidum  ferrugine  tinxit, 
Impiaque  seternam  timuerunt  saecula  noctem." 

Comp.  Ovid,  Metam.  xv.  786. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  25 

of  Augustus  insinuated  that  their  patron  was  inspired  by  an 
effluence  from  this  glorious  being :  to  him  they  ventured  to 
ascribe  the  real  parentage  of  the  restorer  of  the  city,  as  its 
founder  had  sprung  from  the  auspicious  passion  of  Mars  for 
Rhea.1  When  they  came  into  his  presence  they  could  not 
flatter  him  more  adroitly  than  by  dropping  their  eyes  to  the 
ground,  as  if  dazzled  by  the  encounter  with  his  celestial  radi- 
ance.3 Besides  building  a  splendid  temple  to  Apollo  on  the 
Palatine  hill,  the  emperor  sought  to  honour  him  by  transplant- 
ing to  the  Circus  Maximus,  the  sports  of  which  were  under 
his  special  protection,  an  obelisk  from  Heliopolis  in  Egypt. 
This  flame-shaped  column  was  a  symbol  of  the  sun,  and  origi- 
nally bore  a  blazing  orb  upon  its  summit.  It  is  interesting  to 
trace  an  intelligible  motive  for  the  first  introduction  into  Eu- 
rope of  these  grotesque  and  unsightly  monuments  of  eastern 
superstition. 

Descending  from  the  heights,  and  quitting  the  open  spaces 
of  the  city,  which  afforded  commanding  eminences  and  ample 
room  for  his  most  august  constructions,  the  re-  Restoration  of 
storer  of  antiquity  next  proceeded  to  revive  the  woreh^oTthe 
modest  and  retiring  worship  of  the  streets  and  LareSi 
lanes.    The  three  hundred  shrines,  all  of  imposing  magnitude, 
which  Virgil  assures  us  he  dedicated  throughout  the  city  to 
the  "  gods  of  Italy,"  were  in  fact,  not  temples  of  the  Olym- 
pian deities,  such  as  have  been  mentioned  above,  but  fanes  or 
chapels  of  Stata  Mater  the  Steadfast  Earth,  and  the  Lares,  or 
domestic  Genii,  erected  in  every  vicus  or  district,  for  the  com- 
mon worship  of  the  locality.    Notwithstanding  the  grandeur 
of  their  attributes  and  the  attraction  of  their  magnificent 
ceremonials,  the  greater  divinities,  imported  from  Greece  and 
Asia,  never  fully  acquired  the  sympathies  of  the  genuine  Ital- 

1  Suet.  Oct.  94. ;  Dion,  xlv.  1. 

*  Suet.  Oct.  79. :  "  Oculos  habuit  claros  ac  nitidos,  quibus  etram  existimari 
rolebat  inesse  quoddam  divini  vigoris,  gaudebatque  si  quis  acrius  contuenti, 
quasi  ad  fulgorem  soils,  vultum  submitteret."  Comp.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xi.  32. 
Aurel.  Viet.  Epit.  1.  Viig.  JEn.  viii. :  "  Geminas  cuitempora  flammasLaeta 
vomunt." 


26  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

ians,  who  still  clung  with  unabated  interest  to  the  simple  ser- 
vice of  their  old  household  patrons,  the  symbols,  in  their  view, 
of  permanence  and  security.  The  Roman  might  carry  his 
Penates  with  him  to  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  but  his  Lares 
still  remained  at  home,  and  continued  to  consecrate  his  do- 
mestic hearth,  and  assure  the  safety  of  the  neighbourhood. 
While  Jupiter,  Mars,  and  Quirinus,  had  each  their  patrician 
Flamens,  the  Lares  were  served  by  freedmen  and  plebeians.1 
The  masters  of  quarters  (magistri  vicorum),  churchwardens, 
as  we  might  call  them,  of  parishes,  were  chosen  from  the 
local  population  itself,  and  constituted  an  integral  part  of  the 
municipal  government  of  the  city.  At  a  later  period  in  his 
reign,  the  emperor  seems  to  have  so  far  yielded  to  the  irre- 
sistible propensity  of  his  people  to  make  him  an  object  of 
worship,  as  to  have  allowed  his  own  name  to  be  associated 
with  these  semi-divinities,  and  his  image  to  be  erected  along 
with  theirs,  and  that  of  the  faithful  dog  who  watched  to- 
gether with  the  Lares  and  himself  over  the  domestic  security 
of  the  citizens.2  The  festival  of  the  Street-games,8  which 
from  the  time  of  the  Sabine  Tatius  had  been  celebrated  on 
the  calends  of  May,  was  now  repeated  twice  annually,  on  that 
day,  and  again  in  August,4  in  honour  of  the  imperial  demi- 
god who  had  taken  it  under  his  special  patronage,  and  who 

I  See  Egger,  Historiens  cTAuguste,  in  his  curious  essay  on  the  Augustales, 
p.  369.  foil.     Porphyrion  and  Acron,  the  scholiasts  of  Horace,  ad  Serm.  ii.  3. 
281.  say,  "  Ab  Augusto  Lares,  id  est,  Dii  domestic!  positi  sunt ;  ex  libertinis 
sacerdotes  dati  qui  Augustales  appellati."     "  Jusserat  enim  Augustus  in  com- 
pitis  Deos  Penates  (Lares)  constitui,  ut  studiosius  colerentur.    Erant  autem 
libertini  sacerdotes  qui  Augustales  dicuntur." 

II  Ovid,  Fast.  v.  129.  foil. : 

"Et  canis  ante  pedes  saxo  fabricatus  eodem  .  .  . 
Mille  Lares  Geniumque  Ducis  qui  tradidit  illos 

Urbs  habet,  et  vici  numina  trina  colunt." 
Hence  we  have  numerous  votive  inscriptions,  Laribus  Augustis. 

3  Hence  in  Virgil,  jEn.  viii.  7 IT. : 

"  Lsetitia  ludisque  vice,  plausuque  fremebant." 

4  Suet.  Oct.  31. :  "  Compitales  Lares  ornari  bis  anno  instituit,  vernis  flori- 
bus  et  sestivis." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  27 

gradually  became  the  central  object  of  this  popular  worship 
throughout  Rome  and  Italy,  and  at  least  the  western  prov- 
inces of  the  empire.1 

During  his  long  tenure  of  power,  and  especially  after  as- 
suming the  functions  of  the  chief  priesthood,  Augustus  ex- 
tended his  restoring  care  to  every  branch  of  reli-  Temples  re- 
gious  service.  He  revived  various  solemn  games,  £"  ^ 
which  combined  the  cultivation  of  religion  with  minu8- 
the  amusement  of  the  people  ;  he  increased  the  number  of  the 
special  priesthoods  and  of  their  individual  members,  to  ad- 
vance the  honour  of  the  gods,  and  the  dignity  of  the  noble 
officials ; a  nor  did  he  renounce  the  principles  of  religious  tole- 
ration, which  were  ordinarily  extended  by  the  Roman  govern- 
ment to  all  rituals  politically  harmless,  and  not  flagrantly  im- 
moral.3 Besides  erecting  temples  to  Jupiter  under  the  names 
of  the  Thunderer  and  the  Spoilbearer,  Augustus  dedicated  a 
large  amount  of  bullion,  together  with  gems  and  pearls,  to 
the  same  god,  as  the  tutelar  divinity  of  the  Capitol,  the  cita- 
del of  the  empire.  The  sumptuous  fane  of  the  Capitoline 
Jupiter  had  peculiar  claims  on  the  veneration  of  the  Roman 
citizens ;  for  not  only  the  great  Lord  of  the  earth  was  wor- 
shipped in  it,  but  the  conservative  principle  of  property  itself 

1  This  worship  of  Augustus,  or  rather  perhaps  of  the  Lar  of  Augustus,  as 
a  demigod  or  genius,  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  later  cult  of  the  Csesara 
as  deities,  which  Augustus  himself  interdicted  at  least  in  Rome.  Comp.  Hor. 
Od.  iv.  5.  34. : 

"  Et  Laribus  tuum 
Miscet  numen,  uti  Grsecia  Castoris, 
Et  magni  memor  Herculis." 

As  regards  the  tercentum  delubra  of  Virgil,  we  find  in  the  Regionarii  just 
265  sediculse  enumerated,  in  each  of  which  were  the  figures  of  two  Lares,  and 
the  genius  of  the  emperor.  Hence,  Ovid,  in  round  numbers,  "  Mille  Lares." 

a  Suet.  Oct.  31. :  "  Sacerdotum  etnumerum  et  dignitatem  sed  et  commoda 
auxit,  prsecipue  Vestalium  virginum,"  &c. 

3  Marcianus  in  Dig.  xlvii.  22. :  "  Sed  religionis  causa  coire  non  prohiben- 
tur,  dum  tamen  per  hoc  non  fiat  contra  senatusconsultum  quo  illicita  collegia 
arcentur."  Dionysius  Hal.  (Antiq.  Rom.  ii.  19.)  distinguishes  between  the 
toleration  and  the  reception,  or  as  we  should  say,  establishment,  of  a  foreign 
cult. 


28  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

found  therein  its  appropriate  symbol.  While  the  statue  of 
Jupiter  occupied  the  usual  place  of  the  divinity  in  the  furthest 
recess  of  the  building,  an  image  of  the  god  Terminus  was  also 
placed  in  the  centre  of  the  nave,  which  was  open  to  the  hea- 
vens. A  venerable  legend  affirmed  that  when,  in  the  time  of 
the  kings,  it  was  requisite  to  clear  a  space  on  the  Capitoline 
to  erect  on  it  a  temple  to  the  great  father  of  the  gods,  and 
the  shrines  of  several  lesser  divinities  were  to  be  removed  for 
the  purpose,  Terminus  alone,  the  patron  of  boundaries,  re- 
fused to  quit  his  place,  and  demanded  to  be  included  within 
the  walls  of  the  new  edifice.1  Thus  propitiated,  he  was  under- 
stood to  declare  that  henceforth  the  bounds  of 
gurai  iimita-  the  republic  should  never  be  narrowed ;  and  the 

tion,  and  the  •.    3  ,          ,,  •, /j-.-.    -,  -,       , -,  . 

consecration  of  pledge  was  more  than  fulfilled  by  the  ever-increas- 
ing circuit  of  her  dominion.  But  the  solicitude 
of  this  tutelary  divinity  was  not  confined  to  maintaining  the 
frontier  of  the  empire  ;  as  guardian  of  the  public  domain  he 
presided  over  the  measurement  or  limitation  of  every  civic 
territory,  and  the  private  estates  assigned  out  of  it ;  his 
bound-stones  were  erected  to  mark  out  each  separate  divi- 
sion, consecrated  with  rustic  offerings,  and  hallowed  with 
solemn  formularies.9  Whenever  a  portion  of  a  conquered 
district  was  to  be  allotted  to  a  community  or  a  citizen,  the 
augur,  with  his  staff  in  his  hand,  turning  himself  to  the  aus- 
picious quarter  of  the  heavens,  first  drew  an  imaginary  line 

1  Ovid,  Fast.  iL  667. : 

"  Terminus,  ut  veteres  memorant,  conventua  in  ffide 
Restitit,  et  magno  cum  Jove  templa  tenet" 

a  The  citizen  who  removed  a  landmark  was  devoted  to  the  gods ;  the  slave 
was  thrown  into  chains  or  subjected  to  hard  labour :  but  if  he  had  acted  under 
the  authority  of  his  master,  he  was  put  to  death  with  all  his  family,  by  way, 
as  it  would  seem,  of  punishing  his  guilty  owner.  See  the  formula  in  the 
Scriptores  Rei  Agrarise,  p.  258.  ed.  Goes.  These  penalties  were  commuted 
to  a  fine  by  a  law  of  Caius  Caesar  (lex  Mamilia,  &c.),  which  Mommsen  ascribes 
to  the  Dictator.  But  this  opinion  is  controverted  by  Rudorff,  and  I  have  little 
doubt  that  its  real  author  was  Caius  Caligula.  See  Lachmann's  Momische 
Feldmesser,  ii.  223.  244.  The  law  in  question  is  preserved  ha  the  Pandects. 
See  Digest,  xlvii.  21.  de  termino  moto. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  29 

across  it  from  end  to  end  in  a  direction  vertical  to  himself, 
then  another  at  right  angles  to  it  from  right  to  left,  thus  di- 
viding it  in  his  mind  into  four  equal  portions.1  The  portions 
thus  designated  were  then  separated  by  balks  of  certain  width, 
and  again  subdivided  into  smaller  parallelograms,  according 
to  the  number  of  lots  required.  Each  lot  was  marked  by 
bound-stones  at  its  corners  and  points  of  intersection,  and 
along  its  edges  trees  of  foreign  origin  were  planted,  as  a 
standing  witness  to  the  artificial  character  of  the  limitation.* 
If  the  space  thus  allotted  was  not,  as  of  course  it  seldom  or 
never  was,  strictly  rectangular,  the  remainder  was  excluded 
from  this  geometrical  division,  and  reserved  as  the  peculiar 
property  of  the  state.  When  the  appointed  forms  had  been 
completed,  the  estate  of  the  citizen  or  colonist  was  placed 
under  the  protection  of  the  god  Terminus ;  and  the  boundaries 
once  assigned,  marked  out,  and  consecrated,  could  never 
again  be  changed,  whatever  change  might  occur  in  their 
ownership.  If,  for  instance,  one  of  these  rectangles  or  fundi 
became  divided  between  more  than  a  single  proprietor,  the 
fundus  still  remained  distinct,  and  for  purposes  of  taxation 
was  reckoned  as  an  unit.8  This  mode  of  laud-measuring  was 
a  science  derived  from  the  Etruscans,  and  is  perhaps  first 
brought  to  our  notice  by  a  fragment  of  writing  which  dates 
from  the  fifth  century  of  the  city.4  It  was,  however,  at  least 

1  Originally  the  augur  faced  the  west ;  afterwards  he  took  a  contrary  posi- 
tion. This  appears  from  Varro,  cited  by  Frontinus,  de  limitibus.  Hyginua 
de  Urn.  const,  in  Lachmann,  i.  27.  166.,  compared  with  p.  169.  See  Rudorff's 
Gromatische  Instit.  p.  343.  foil,  of  the  second  volume  of  Lachmann's  collec- 
tion. 

9  It  is  not  surprising  that  these  bound-stones,  which  undoubtedly  were 
maintained  in  innumerable  instances  for  a  thousand  years,  should  have  utterly 
disappeared.  They  furnished  the  readiest  materials  for  building  and  the  re- 
pair of  roads.  Besides,  they  were  usually  placed  over  pieces  of  money,  like 
the  foundation-stones  of  our  modern  edifices,  and  were  no  doubt  often  torn  up 
for  the  sake  of  the  concealed  treasure. 

3  Though  the  territory  of  Italy,  and  the  whole  ager  Eomanus  throughout 
the  provinces,  was  exempted  from  the  land-tax,  it  did  not  escape  the  succes- 
sion tax  imposed  by  Augustus. 

4  See  the  fragment  ascribed  to  the  augur  Vegoia  in  the  Script.  Rei.  Agr. 
p.  258.  ed.  Goes.,  5.  350.  ed.  Lachmann. 


30  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

as  ancient  as  the  Etruscan  kings  of  Rome.  The  divisions  of 
land  made  by  the  Gracchi  and  Sulla,  and  by  the  kings  them- 
selves, continued  to  be  known  by  their  irremovable  bound- 
stones  down  to  a  late  period  of  the  empire.  Though  the 
stones  or  termini  themselves  have  long  been  uprooted  from 
the  soil,  it  is  said  that  the  names  of  the  original  fundi  may 
still  be  traced  both  in  Italy  and  Gaul  in  the  modern  appella- 
tions of  certain  well-known  farms.1 

The  writers  on  this  abstruse  subject  contain  numerous  no- 
tices of  the  limitations  effected  by  Augustus,  and  the  stones 
Respected  by  set  UP  ^7  ^s  authority  are  referred  to  by  his 
Augustus.  name.*  Some  of  them  mark,  we  may  suppose, 
the  ktest  assignments  of  land  he  made  to  his  veterans  after 
Actium ;  but  even  in  the  turbulence  of  the  triumvirate  the 
formalities  of  ancient  usage  were  not  perhaps  disregarded  in 
this  particular.  The  land-measurer  or  agrimensor  preceded 
the  veteran  with  his  pole  and  chain  to  mark  out  the  appointed 
allotment ;  *  but  the  rude  soldier  entered  into  possession 
sword  in  hand,  and  hardly  sheathed  it  either  to  sow  or  reap 
the  harvest.  He  paid  perhaps  little  respect  to  the  bound- 
stones  set  up  for  him,  or  even  waited  for  the  completion  of 
augural  forms.  The  emperor,  however,  was  solicitous  to  re- 
pair whatever  irregularities  had  occurred  in  the  original  ap- 
propriation, and  studied  to  revive  the  honours  of  Terminus  in 
conjunction  with  those  of  Jupiter  himself.4 

1  Nlebuhr  (Rom.  Hist.  ii.  629.)  refers  to  two  estates  in  the  Campagna 
known  by  the  name  of  la  Roiana  and  la  Cipollara,  which  he  considers  to  be 
fundi  Roianus  and  Ceponianus.  A  M.  Bausset,  cited  by  Dureau  de  la  Malle, 
has  discovered  no  less  than  twenty-five  such  names  of  Roman  proprietors  pre- 
served in  villages,  hamlets,  and  farms,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Beziers  in 
France.  De  la  Malle,  Econ.  pol.  des  Remains,  i.  183. 

a  We  meet  with  mention  not  only  of  termini  Gracchani  and  Sullani,  but 
Augustei,  Neroniani,  Vespasiani,  &c.  They  were  inscribed  with  numbers  or 
figures,  plated  with  brass,  and  differed  from  one  another  in  shape.  Those  of 
Augustus  and  Caligula  were  rotundi,  perhaps  rounded  at  the  head ;  others 
were  quadrati .  In  the  Script.  Rei  Ayr.  are  many  rude  figures  of  these  ter- 
mini, copied  from  the  MSS. 

*  Propert.  iv.  1.  130. :   "  Abstulit  excultas  pertica  iristis  opes." 

4  "Terminos  rotundos  quos  Augusteos  vocamus,   pro  hac  ratione  quod 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  3^ 

The  restoration  of  the  temples  of  Juno  "by  Augustus  and 
his  consort  indicated  the  interest  the  new  government  felt  in 
the  institution  of  marriage.  Neither  the  history  principieof] 
nor  literature  of  Rome  can  be  understood  without  man  marriage. 
clear  ideas  upon  this  branch  of  her  social  economy.  All  na- 
tions have  agreed  in  investing  marriage  with  a  religious  sanc- 
tion ;  but  religion  and  policy  were  closely  connected  through 
every  phase  of  the  social  life  of  the  Romans,  and  in  none  more 
closely  than  in  this.1  Marriage  they  regarded  as  an  institu- 
tion hallowed  by  the  national  divinities  for  the  propagation 
of  the  Roman  race,  the  special  favourite  of  the  gods.  Its  ob- 
ject was  not  to  chasten  the  affections  and  purify  the  appetites 
of  man,  but  to  replenish  the  curies  and  centuries,  to  maintain 
the  service  of  the  national  temples,  to  recruit  the  legions  and 
establish  Roman  garrisons  in  conquered  lands.  The  marriage 
therefore  of  Caius  and  Caia,  of  a  Roman  with  a  Roman,  was 
a  far  higher  and  holier  matter,  in  the  view  of  their  priests 
and  legislators,  than  the  union  of  a  Roman  with  a  foreigner, 
of  aliens  with  aliens,  or  of  slaves  with  slaves.  Even  the  legiti- 
mate union  of  the  sexes  among  the  citizens  was  regulated  by 
the  descending  scale  of  confarreation,  coemption,  and  mere  co- 
habitation ;  and  the  offspring  of  the  former  only  were  quali- 
fied for  the  highest  religious  functions,  such  as  those  of  the 
Flamen  of  Jupiter,  and  apparently  of  the  Vestal  Virgins,  on 
which  the  safety  of  the  state  was  deemed  most  strictly  to 
depend.2 

These  jealous  regulations  were  fostered  in  the  first  instance 
by  a  grave  political  necessity ;  but  the  increase  of  the  power 

Augustus  eos  recensuit,  et  ubi  defuerunt  lapides  alios  constituit." — Scr.  Rei 
Ayr.  p.  255.  ed.  Goes.  The  two  appendices  on  the  subject  of  Roman  limitation 
at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of  the  English  translation  of  Niebuhr's  his- 
tory should  be  read  in  conjunction  with  De  la  Malle's  chapter  on  the  same 
subject,  and  RudorfF's  Gromatische  Institutionen,  in  Lachmann's  edition  of 
the  Scr.  Rei  Agrarice. 

1  Modestinus  in  the  Digest,  xxiii.  2.  1.,  has  a  fine  definition  of  marriage: 
"  Nuptiae  sunt  conjunctio  maris  et  fceminae,  consortium  omnis  vitse,  divini  et 
humani  juris  communicatio." 

a  See  Dezobry,  Rome  aw  Siecle  cFAuguste,  ii.  436. 


32  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

Fallen  into  dig-  °^  R°me>  ^e  enlargement  of  her  resources,  the 

favour  and        multiplication  of  her  allies,  her  clients  and  de- 
desuetude.  . 

pendents,  had  long  relaxed  her  vigilance  in  main- 
taining the  purity  of  her  children's  descent.1  The  dictates 
of  nature,  reinforced  by  the  observation  of  foreign  examples, 
had  long  rebelled  in  this  matter  against  the  tyrannical  pre- 
scriptions of  a  barbarous  antiquity.  After  the  eastern  con- 
quests of  the  Republic  it  became  impossible  to  maintain  the 
race  in  its  state  of  social  isolation.  In  his  winter  quarters  at 
Athens,  Samos,  or  Ephesus,  the  rude  husbandman  of  Alba  or 
the  Volscian  hills  was  dazzled  by  the  fascinations  of  women, 
whose  accomplishments  fatally  eclipsed  the  homely  virtues 
of  the  Latin  and  Sabine  matrons.  To  form  legitimate  con- 
nexions with  these  foreign  charmers  was  forbidden  him  by 
the  harsh  institutions  of  a  Servius  or  Numa ;  while  his  ideas 
were  so  narrowed  and  debased  by  bad  laws,  that  he  never 
dreamt  of  raising  his  own  countrywomen  by  education  to  the 
level  of  their  superior  attractions.  Gravely  impressing  upon 
his  wife  and  daughters  that  to  sing  and  dance,  to  cultivate 
the  knowledge  of  languages,  to  exercise  the  taste  and  under- 
standing, was  the  business  of  the  hired  courtesan,8  it  was  to 
the  courtesan  that  he  repaired  himself  for  the  solace  of  hi.s 
own  lighter  hours.  The  Hetaerae  of  Greece  had  been  driven 
to  the  voluptuous  courts  of  Asia  by  the  impoverishment,  and 
perhaps  the  declining  refinement,  of  their  native  entertain- 
ers. They  were  now  invited  to  the  great  western  capital  of 
wealth  and  luxury,  where  they  shared  with  viler  objects  the 
admiration  of  the  Roman  nobles,  and  imparted  perhaps  a 

1  Horace,  Od.  iii.  6.  17. : 

"  Foecunda  culpte  ssecula  nuptias 
Primum  inquinavere,  et  genus,  et  domos : 
Hoc  fonte  derivata  clades 

In  patriam  populumque  fluxit." 

5  See  the  well  known  description  of  the  accomplishments  of  the  matron 
Sempronia,  Sallust,  Catil.  25.:  "Hsec  mulier  genere  atque  forma,  prseterea 
viro,  liberis,  satis  fortunata  fuit :  literis  Graecis  atque  Latinis  docta ;  psallere, 
ealtare,  elegantius  quam  necesse  est  probes ;  multa  alia  quse  instrumenta  luxu- 
rise  sunt."  Comp.  Plautus,  Rudens,  prol.  43.,  and  Terence,  Phorm.  i.  2.  86. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  33 

shade  of  sentiment  and  delicacy  to  their  most  sensual  carouses. 
The  unnatural  restrictions  of  the  law  formed  a  decent  excuse 
for  this  class  of  unions,  which  were  often  productive  of  mu- 
tual regard,  and  were  hallowed  at  least  at  the  shrine  of  pub- 
lic opinion. 

Such  fortunate  cases  were,  however,  at  the  best,  only  ex- 
ceptional. For  the  most  part,  the  Grecian  mistress  of  the  pro- 
consul or  imperator,  the  object  of  a  transient  ap-  influenceoftho 
petite,  sought  to  indemnify  herself  by  venal  ra-  freed  women- 
pacity  for  actual  contempt  and  anticipated  desertion.  The  in- 
fluence of  these  seductive  intriguers  poisoned  the  springs  of 
justice  before  the  provincial  tribunals.  At  an  earlier  period 
a  brutal  general  could  order  a  criminal  to  be  beheaded  at  his 
supper  table,  to  exhibit  to  his  paramour  the  spectacle  of 
death :  *  at  a  later,  the  luxurious  governor  of  a  province  al- 
lowed his  freedwoman  to  negotiate  with  his  subjects  for  the 
price  of  their  rights  and  privileges,  or  carried  her  at  his  side 
in  his  progress  through  Italy  itself.3  The  frantic  declama- 

1  This  is  the  story  told  of  L.  Flaminius  by  Valerius  Maximus,  ii.  9.  3. 
Cicero  alludes  to  it,  de  Senect.  12. :  "  Invitus  quidem  feci  ut  L.  Flamininum 
.  .  .  .  e  Senatu  ejicerem,  octo  annis  postquam  consul  fuisset ;  sed  notandam 
putavi  libidinem."  Livy's  version  of  the  same  story  is  still  more  atrocious. 
It  may  be  amusing  to  compare  with  it  the  ingenuous  confession  of  Napoleon 
I.  to  Las  Cases,  in  speaking  of  a  connexion  he  had  formed  in  his  first  Italian 
campaign.  "  J'etais  bien  jeune  alors,  j'etais  heureux,  et  fier  de  mon  petit  suc- 
ces ;  aussi  cherchai  je  a  le  reconnaitre  par  toutes  les  attentions  en  mon  pou- 
voir;  et  TOUS  allez  voir  quel  peut  etre  1'abua  de  1'autorite,  a  quoi  peut  tenirle 
Bort  des  hommes ;  car  je  ne  suis  par  pire  qu'un  autre.  La  promenant  un  jour  au 
milieu  de  nos  positions,  dans  les  environs,  au  Col  de  Tende,  il  me  vient  subite- 
ment  1'idee  de  lui  donner  le  spectacle  d'une  petite  guerre,  et  j'ordonnai  une 
attaque  d'avant-poste.  Nous  fumes  vainqueurs,  il  est  vrai,  mais  evidemment 
il  ne  pouvait  y  avoir  de  resultat ;  1'attaque  etait  une  pure  fantaisie,  et  pour- 
tant  quelques  hommes  y  resterent.  Aussi,  plus  tard,  toutes  les  fois  que  le 
souvenir  m'en  est  revenu  a  1'esprit,  je  me  le  suis  fort  reproche."  Las  Cases, 
Mem.  de  8.  Helene,  i.  169. 

8  See  the  account  of  Chelidon,  the  mistress  of  Verres,  Cic.  in  Verr.  i.  40., 
ii.  47.,  iv.  32.,  v.  18.,  and  of  Cytheris,  Philipp.  ii.  We  can  hardly  wonder 
that  the  Romans,  with  their  formal  notions  of  the  institution  of  marriage, 
should  have  entertained  no  moral  disapprobation  of  these  connections.  It 
was  only  in  a  political  point  of  view  that  the  concubinatus  of  a  citizen  with  a 
foreign  pellex  was  regarded  as  a  mesalliance.  But  the  pellex  must  be  a  free 
VOL.  iv. — 3 


34:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

tions  of  Cicero  against  the  licentiousness  of  Verres  and  An- 
tonius  in  this  respect  were  a  fruitless  and,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, a  hollow  attempt  to  play  upon  an  extinct  religious 
sentiment. 

The  results  of  this  vicious  indulgence  were  more  depraving 
than  the  vice  itself.  The  unmarried  Roman,  thus  cohabiting 
with  a  freedwoman  or  slave,  became  the  father 
of  a  bastard  brood,  against  whom  the  gates  of  the 
city  were  shut.  His  pride  was  wounded  in  the 
tenderest  part ;  his  loyalty  to  the  commonwealth  was  shaken. 
He  chose  rather  to  abandon  the  wretched  offspring  of  his 
amours,  than  to  breed  them  up  as  a  reproach  to  himself,  and 
see  them  sink  below  the  rank  in  which  their  father  was  born. 
In  the  absence  of  all  true  religious  feeling,  the  possession  of 
children  was  the  surest  pledge  to  the  state  of  the  public 
morality  of  her  citizens.  By  the  renunciation  of  marriage, 
which  it  became  the  fashion  to  avow  and  boast,  public  con- 
fidence was  shaken  to  its  centre.1  On  the  other  hand,  the 
women  themselves,  insulted  by  the  neglect  of  the  other  sex, 
and  exasperated  at  the  inferiority  of  their  position,  revenged 
themselves  by  holding  the  institution  of  legitimate  marriage 
with  almost  equal  aversion.  They  were  indignant  at  the  ser- 
vitude to  which  it  bound  them,  the  state  of  dependence  and 
legal  incapacity  in  which  it  kept  them ;  for  it  left  them  with- 
out rights,  and  without  the  enjoyment  of  their  own  property : 
it  reduced  them  to  the  status  of  mere  children,  or  rather 
transferred  them  from  the  power  of  their  parent  to  that  of 

woman :  commerce  with  a  slave,  where  the  choice  was  not  free  on  both  sides, 
was  esteemed  dishonourable,  and  the  high-minded  Roman  generally  enfran- 
chised the  object  of  his  desire.  Walckenaer  has  put  this  subject  in  its  true 
light  in  his  Histoire  d1  Horace,  i.  110.  foL 

1  See  the  praises  of  celibacy  in  Plautus,  Mil.  Glor.  iii.  1.  111.  fol. : 
"Quando  habeo  multos  cognates  quid  opus  sit  mihi  liberis?"  etc.  Comp. 
Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xiv.  procem. :  "  Coepisse  orbitatem  in  auctoritate  summa  et 
potentia  esse,  captationem  in  quaestu  maximo."  Tac.  Ann.  xiii.  52.  Senec. 
Cons,  ad  Marc.  19.  Augustus  says,  in  Dion,  Ivi.  7. :  ov  yap  5^  »ou  p.ovav\ia 
Xaipfrf,  1v  &vev  yvvatKuv  Sidyrirt,  ovSf  itrriv  tons  vfitav  tj  fftTtircu  novos  f\ 
vfiplfav  Kal  ifft\yaiv( 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  35 

their  husband.  They  continued  through  life,  in  spite  of  the 
mockery  of  respect  with  which  the  laws  surrounded  them,1 
things  rather  than  persons ;  things  that  could  be  sold,  trans- 
ferred backwards  and  forwards,  from  one  master  to  another, 
for  the  sake  of  their  dowry  or  even  their  powers  of  child- 
bearing.*  For  the  smallest  fault  the  wife  might  be  placed  on 
trial  before  her  husband,  or  if  he  were  more  than  usually  con- 
siderate in  judging  upon  his  own  case,  before  a  council  of  her 
relations.  She  might  be  beaten  with  rods,  even  to  death  it- 
self, for  adultery  or  any  other  heinous  crime ;  while  she  might 
suffer  divorce  from  the  merest  caprice,  and  simply  for  the  loss 
of  her  youth  or  beauty.3 

The  latter  centuries  of  the  Roman  commonwealth  are  filled 
with  the  domestic  struggles  occasioned  by  the  obstinacy  with 
which  political  restrictions  were  maintained  upon 

/..,  •  t       i  ^  -n      •        Struggles  of  tho 

the  most  sensitive  of  the  social  relations.  Begin-  women  against 
ning  with  wild  and  romantic  legends,  the  account 
of  these  troubles  becomes  in  the  end  an  important  feature  in 
history.  As  early  as  the  year  423,  it  is  said,  a  great  number 
of  Roman  matrons  attempted  the  lives  of  their  husbands  by 
poison.  They  were  dragged  before  the  tribunals,  probably 
domestic,  and  adjudged  to  death.  As  many  as  a  hundred  and 
seventy  are  said  to  have  suffered.4  In  the  following  century, 
after  the  promulgation  of  the  Oppian  law,  which  forbade 

1  For  these  outward  signs  of  respect,  see  particularly  Ovid,  Art.  Amand. 
i.  32.  Festus,  in  voc.  Matronse. 

*  The  well-known  story  of  Cato  and  his  wife  Marcia  has  been  related  in  an 
early  chapter  of  this  history.    Plut.  Cat.  Min.  36.  68.  Comp.  Plaut.  Mencechm. 
in  fin.: 

"  Venibunt  servi,  subpellex,  fundi,  sedes,  omnia  .... 

Venibit  uxor  quoque  etiam,  si  quis  emptor  venerit." 

The  uxor  is  the  legitimate  wife  who  has  contracted  nuptice,  a  Roman  marriage. 
Conjux  is  a  term  of  much  wider  application. 

*  Valerius  Maximus  (vi.  3.)  tells  of  Egnatius  Metellus,  who  flogged  his 
wife  to  death  for  drinking  wine.    Comp.  Plin.  H.  N.  xiv.  13. ;  Gell.  x.  23., 
and  the  passage  in  Plautus,  Mercator,  iv.  6. : 

"  Ecastor  lege  dura  vivunt  mulieres, 

Multoque  iniquiore  miserae  quam  viri,"  etc. 
4  Liv.  viii.  18.     Val.  Max.  ii.  6.  3. 


36  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

women  to  keep  more  than  half  an  ounce  of  gold,  to  wear 
robes  of  various  colours,  and  to  ride  in  the  carpentum,  they 
formed  a  new  conspiracy — such  at  least  was  the  story — not  to 
destroy  their  husbands,  but  to  refuse  conversation  with  them 
and  frustrate  their  hopes  of  progeny.1  This  was  followed  at 
the  distance  of  half  a  century  by  the  Lex  Voconia,  the  most 
unjust  of  laws,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Christian  Augustine, 
which  excluded  women  from  the  right  of  inheriting.*  Of 
these  laws,  however,  the  first  was  speedily  abrogated,"  the 
other  was  evaded,  and,  by  underhand  and  circuitous  means, 
women  came  to  receive  inheritances,  to  the  great  scandal,  as 
we  shall  hereafter  see,  of  the  reformers  under  the  empire.* 
But  the  continued  quarrel  of  the  sexes  was  exaggerated  by 
mutual  jealousy,  and  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Catilinarian  con- 
spiracy, it  was  currently  reported  among  the  men,  that  the 
traitors  obtained  money  for  their  enterprise  from  a  multitude 
of  matrons,  who  longed  for  a  bloody  revolution  to  extermi- 
nate their  husbands.* 

In  the  primitive  ages  the  state  had  not  only  regulated  the 
forms  of  marriage,  but  had  undertaken  to  enforce  it.  Among 
Legislation  of  *ne  duties  of  the  censors  was  that  of  levying  fines 
for  ^forcing  upon  the  citizen  who  persisted  in  remaining  single 
marriage.  ^  tke  Detriment  of  the  public  weal.  The  censure 
of  Camillus  and  Postumius,  A.  u.  351,  was  celebrated  for  the 
patriotic  vigour  with  which  this  inquisition  was  made.'  In 

1  Ovid,  Fast.  L  620.  folL 

*  Augustin.  de  Civ.  Dei,  iii.  21.    The  severity  of  this  law  is  also  stigma- 
tized in  the  Institutions  of  Justinian  (iii.  2.),  and  the  modifications  explained 
which  were  introduced  by  the  imperial  legislation. 

1  The  Lei  Oppia  was  abrogated  A.  c.  657,  under  the  consulship  of  1L  Por- 
cius  Cato  and  L.  Valerius  Flaccus.  The  abrogation  was  proposed  by  the  tri- 
bunes Fundanius  and  Valerius,  and  carried  with  the  help  of  clamour  and  agi- 
tation on  the  part  of  the  women,  against  the  resistance  of  Cato  and  some  of 
their  own  colleagues.  Liv.  xxiiv.  1.  folL 

4  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  23. :  "  Quae  Oppiis  quondam  aliisque  legibus  constricts, 
nunc  vinclis  eisolutis  domos  jam  et  exercitus  regerent." 

*  Appian,  Bell.  Civ.  ii.  2. :  xrfn*ra  8e  aytlpuv  ToAXa  ira/>i  ToXAwy  ywtu- 
KU»,  01  TOWI  &v5pas  fartfov  iv  ry  ivavturrafffi 

*  VaL  Max.  ii.  9.  1.    Plut  Camill.  2. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  37 

process  of  time  the  milder  method  of  encouraging  marriage 
by  rewards  was  introduced,  the  earliest  mention  of  which, 
perhaps,  is  in  a  speech  of  Scipio,  censor  in  the  year  554.  At 
this  time,  it  appears,  certain  immunities  were  already  granted 
to  the  fathers  of  legitimate,  and  even  of  adopted,  children, 
which  last  the  censor  denounced  as  an  abuse.1  But  neither 
rewards  nor  penalties  proved  effectual  to  check  the  increasing 
tendency  to  celibacy,  and  at  the  period  of  the  Gracchi  an 
alarm  was  sounded  that  the  old  Roman  race  was  becoming 
rapidly  extinguished.  The  censor  of  the  year  623,  Metellus 
Macedonicus,  expounded  the  evil  to  the  senate  in  a  speech 
which  seems  to  have  been  among  the  most  curious  produc- 
tions of  antiquity.  Could  we  exist  without  wives  at  all,  it  be- 
gan, doubtless  we  should  all  rid  ourselves  of  the  plague  they  are 
to  us :  since,  however,  nature  has  decreed  that  we  cannot  dis- 
pense with  the  infliction,  it  is  best  to  bear  it  manfully,  and 
rather  look  to  the  permanent  conservation  of  the  state  than  to 
our  own  transient  satisfaction*  It  is  still  more  curious,  per- 
haps, that  above  a  hundred  years  afterwards  Augustus  should 
have  ventured  to  recite  in  the  polished  senate  of  his  own 
generation  the  cynical  invective  of  a  ruder  age.  But,  so  it 
was,  that  when  the  legislation  of  Julius  Caesar  was  found 
ineffectual  for  controlling  the  still  growing  evil,  it  was  rein- 
forced by  his  successor  with  fresh  penalties  and  rewards,  and 
the  bitter  measure  recommended  by  the  arguments  and  even 
the  language  of  the  ancient  censor.8 

1  Cell.  v.  19.    Compare  Liv.  xlv.  16.    Heinecc.  Antiq.  Roman,  i.  25.  3. 
Cicero  approves  of  this  kind  of  legislation.    See  de  Legg.  iii. :  "  Caelibes  esse 
prohibento." 

2  Cell.  i.  6. :  "Si  sine  uxore,  Quirites,  possemus  esse,  omnes  ea  molestia 
careremus :  sed  quoniam  ita  natura  tradidit,  ut  nee  cum  illis  satis  commode, 
nee  sine  illis  ullo  modo  vivi  possit,  saluti  perpetuae  potius  quam  brevi  volup- 
tati  consulendum."    That  the  censor  was  Metellus  Macedonicus,  not  Numidi- 
cus,  appears  from  Liv.  Epit.  lix.     Gellius  quotes  a  very  noble  sentiment  from 
another  part  of  the  same  speech. 

*  Suet.  Oct.  89. :  "Etiam  libros  totog  et  senatui  recitavit  et  populo  notos 
per  edictum  saepe  fecit :  ut  orationes  Q.  Metelli  de  augenda  prole,  et  Rutilii  de 
modo  (edificiorum :  quo  magis  persuaderet  utramque  rem  non  a  se  primo  ani- 
madversam,  sed  antiquis  jam  tune  cures  fuisse." 


~; 


38  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  importance  attached  by  the  emperor  to  this  fruitless 
legislation  appears  from  his  turning  his  efforts  in  this  direc- 
tion from  the  first  year  of  his  return  to  Rome. 

Legislation  of      .__.          ,  -       -  .  ,      A       .  .       . 

Augustus  on      When  he  took  the  census  with  Agnppa,  in  725, 

this  subject.         ,       .      .   ,    ,  . '  I±       S.  i 

he  insisted  on  carrying  into  execution  the  regula- 
tions of  the  dictator,  which  had  been  neglected  during  the  in- 
A.U.  725.  terval  of  anarchy,  and  were  destined  speedily  to 
B.C.  29.  fan  mto  similar  neglect  again.  Upon  this  one 
point  the  master  of  the  Romans  could  make  no  impression  upon 
the  dogged  disobedience  of  his  subjects.  Both  the  men  and 
the  women  preferred  the  loose  terms  of  union  upon  which  they 
had  consented  to  cohabit  to  the  harsh  provisions  of  antiquity. 
They  despised  rewards,  and  penalties  they  audaciously  defied. 
Eleven  years  later  Augustus  caused  the  senate  to  pass  a  new 
law  of  increased  stringency,  by  which  the  marriage  of  citi- 
zens of  competent  age  was  positively  required.  Three  years' 
grace  was  allowed  for  making  a  choice  and  settling  prelimi- 
naries ;  but  when  the  allotted  interval  was  expired,  it  was 
found  expedient  to  prolong  it  for  two  years  more :  from  time 
to  time  a  further  respite  seems  to  have  been  conceded,  and 
we  shall  find  the  emperor  still  struggling  almost  to  the  close 
of  his  life,  to  impose  this  intolerable  restraint  upon  the  liberty 
or  licence  of  the  times.  The  consent  of  the  senators  them- 
selves, subservient  as  they  generally  were,  was  given  with 
murmurs  of  reluctance,  the  more  so,  perhaps,  as  they  alone 
were  excepted  from  the  indulgence,  which  was  now  prudently 
extended  to  every  lower  order  of  citizens,  of  permission  to 
form  a  legitimate  marriage  with  a  freedwoman.1  The  meas- 
ure was  received  indeed  with  outward  deference,  but  an  in- 
ward determination  to  evade  or  overthrow  it.  Even  the 
poets,  who  were  instructed  to  sing  its  praises,  renounced  the 
obligation  to  fulfil  its  conditions  ;  while  others,  whose  voices 

1  Dion,  liv.  16. ;  who  gives  as  the  reason  for  the  relaxation  the  dispropor- 
tion of  freeborn  males  to  females,  Ivi.  7.  Comp.  Dig.  xxiii.  2.  44.  Suet. 
Oct.  34. :  "  Prae  tumultu  recusantium  perferre  non  potuit  nisi  adempta  demum 
lenitave  parte  pcenarum,  et  vacatione  triennii  data,  auctisque  praemiis." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  39 

were  generally  tuned  to  accents  of  adulation,  exulted  openly 
in  its  relaxation  or  postponement.1 

The  nature  of  the  penalties  and  rewards  assigned  by  this 
law  shows  that  the  views  of  Augustus  were  for  the  most  part 
confined  to  the  rehabilitation  of  marriage  in  the  penalties  of 
higher  classes,  and  the  restoration  of  the  purest  ^^  of d 
blood  of  Rome.  On  the  one  hand,  celibacy  was  marriage. 
punished  by  incapacity  to  receive  bequests,  and  even  the  mar- 
ried man  who  happened  to  be  childless,  was  regarded  with 
suspicion,  and  mulcted  of  one  half  of  every  legacy.2  On  the 
other,  the  father  of  a  family  enjoyed  a  place  of  distinction  in 
the  theatres,  and  preference  in  competition  for  public  office. 
He  was  relieved  from  the  responsibilities  of  a  tutor  or  a 
judex,  and,  as  by  the  earlier  measure  of  the  dictator,  was 
excused  from  a  portion  of  the  public  burdens,  if  father  of 
three  children  at  Rome,  of  four  in  Italy,  or  of  five  in  the 
provinces.  Of  the  two  consuls,  precedence  was  given,  not 
to  the  senior  in  age,  according  to  ancient  usage,  but  to  the 
husband  and  the  father  of  the  most  numerous  offspring.3  It 

1  Horace  and  Propertius  were  both  unmarried.  The  former  muttered,  in 
language  which  seems  even  by  its  languor  and  prosaic  structure  to  betray  its 
insincerity  (Carm.  S&c.), — 

"  Diva,  producas  subolem,  Patrumque 
Prosperes  decreta  super  jugandis 
Foaminis,  prolisque  novae  feraci 

Lege  marita." 

The  latter  exclaimed,  with  all  the  fervour  of  genuine  triumph  (ii.  6.  2.), — 
"  Gavisa  es  certes  sublatam  Cynthia  legem, 

Qua  quondam  edicta  flemus  uterque  diu, 
Ne  nos  divideret :  quamvis  diducere  amantes 

Non  queat  invitos  Jupiter  ipse  duos  ! " 

s  Tac.  Ann.  xv.  19.  Dion,  liii.  13.  Gaii  Instit.  ii.  111.  286.  Cooip. 
Juvenal,  ix.  87. : 

"  Jura  parentis  habes ;  propter  me  scriberis  hseres ; 
Legatum  omne  capis,  necnon  et  dulce  caducum." 

8  Gell.  ii.  15.  Besides  the  classical  authorities  here  cited  the  reader  may 
refer  to  the  fragments  of  Ulpian,  published  in  Booking's  Corpus  Juris  Ante- 
justinianei,  and  the  modern  writers  on  jurisprudence,  such  as  Heineccius, 
Gothofred,  Schulting,  Brisson,  and  others  who  have  written  treatises  upon  the 


40  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

is  clear  that  such  provisions  as  these  could  have  had  little 
application  to  the  great  mass  of  the  citizens,  who  lived  on  the 
favour  of  their  noble  patrons  or  the  bounty  of  the  treasury, 
and  bred  up  a  horde  of  paupers  to  eat  into  the  vitals  of  the 
state. 

The  perverse  subjects  of  this  domestic  legislation  seem  at 
first  to  have  sought  to  evade  it  by  entering  into  contracts  of 
Penalties  of  un-  marriage  which  they  afterwards  omitted  to  fulfil, 
chastity.  j^  was  necessary  to  enact  new  provisions  to  meet 

this  subterfuge.  The  facility  allowed  by  the  ancient  usage 
to  divorce  formed  another  obvious  means  of  escape :  but 
again  did  the  vigilant  reformer  interfere  by  appointing  the 
observation  of  onerous  forms  for  the  legal  separation  of  mar- 
ried persons.1  When  a  divorce  had  actually  taken  place,  the 
parties  fell  again  under  the  provisions  of  the  marriage  law,  and 
were  required  to  find  themselves  fresh  consorts  within  a  speci- 
fied interval.2  Another  mode  of  driving  the  reluctant  citizens 
within  the  marriage  pale  was  the  infliction  of  penalties  and  dis- 
grace upon  unchastity  beyond  it :  while  now,  for  the  first  time, 
adultery,  which  had  been  left  to  be  punished  by  the  domestic 
tribunal  as  a  private  injury,  was  branded  as  a  crime  against  the 
general  well  being,  and  subjected  to  the  animadversion  of  the 
Btate.'  But  Augustus  was  not  satisfied  with  directing  his  thun- 
ders against  the  guilty ;  he  sought  to  anticipate  criminality  by 
imposing  fresh  restraints  upon  the  licentious  manners  of  the 
age.  After  the  example  of  his  predecessors  in  the  censorship, 

Lex  Papia  Poppsea,  or  reconstructed  it  from  the  notices  of  antiquity.  The 
particulars  here  given  may  be  found  in  all  compilations  on  Roman  law. 

1  Paulus  in  Dig.  xxiv.  2.  9. :  "  Xullum  divortium  ratum  est,  nisi  septem 
civibus  Rom.  puberibus  adhibitis,  prseter  libertum  ejus  qui  divortium  faciet." 

4  Ulpian,  fr.  xiv. :  "  Fceminis  lex  Julia  a  morte  viri  anni  tribuit  vacationem, 
a  divortio  sex  mensium  :  lex  autem  Papia  a  morte  viri  biennii,  a  repudio  anni 
et  sex  mensium."  The  fragment  seems  to  be  incomplete,  and  probably  went 
on  to  specify  the  interval  allowed  to  the  male  sex. 

*  Suetonius,  Oct.  34.,  calls  this  law,  "  Lex  de  adulteriis  et  pudicitia."  For 
the  particulars  see  Dig.  xlviii.  6. 

Horace,  Od.  iv.  5. :  "  Mos  et  lex  maculosum  edomuit  nefas." 

The  punishment  of  adultery  consisted  in  heavy  pecuniary  fines,  and  ban- 
ishment to  an  island,  and  seems  therefore  applicable  only  to  the  higher  classes. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  ^ 

he  fixed  a  scale  of  expense  for  the  luxuries  of  the  table,  and 
pretended  to  regulate  the  taste  of  the  women  for  personal  orna- 
ments. At  the  gladiatorial  shows,  from  which  they  could  no 
longer  be  excluded,  he  assigned  different  places  for  the  two 
sexes,  removing  the  women  to  the  hinder  rows,  the  least  fa- 
vourable either  for  seeing  or  being  seen,  and  altogether  for- 
bade them  to  assist  at  the  exhibitions  of  wrestling  and  boxing. 
The  main  principles  of  the  old  Roman  polity  were  founded 
upon  the  distinction  of  classes,  and  in  order  to  revive  or  rein- 
force them,  the  conservative  legislator  determined 
to  mark  the  distinction  by  outward  tokens.  The  the  distinction 
word  of  command  went  forth,  let  every  Roman 
know  his  own  place  and  keep  it.  The  law  of  Roscius  Otho 
had  separated  the  knights  from  the  body  of  the  people,  and 
assigned  them  the  first  fourteen  rows  in  the  theatre.  But 
this  ordinance  had  been  invaded,  in  the  confusion  of  the 
times,  by  the  rampant  democracy  of  Ca?sar  and  Antonius :  a 
plain  soldier  had  been  known  to  intrude  himself  into  the 
places  thus  set  apart  for  the  privileged  order ;  and  Augustus 
himself  had  beheld  a  senator  enter  the  theatre,  where  every 
seat  was  already  occupied,  and  no  man  rise  to  make  room  for 
him.  Freedmen,  under  pretence  of  being  attached  to  the  ser- 
vice of  foreign  potentates,  had  penetrated  the  orchestra  itself, 
which  was  strictly  appropriated  to  the  senators.  These  ir- 
regularities were  regarded  as  the  symptom  of  a  dislocation 
of  all  social  principles.  Henceforth  they  were  corrected,  and 
with  the  correction  it  was  hoped  that  the  spirit  of  antiquity 
would  revive.  The  soldiers  were  kept  separate  from  the 
people,  the  young  from  the  old,  the  children's  tutors  had  their 
proper  places  assigned  them  by  the  side  of  their  charges,  the 
married  men  were  promoted  in  front  of  the  bachelors,  and  a 
sumptuary  ordinance  relegated  to  the  most  distant  corners 
those  who  ventured  to  obtrude  themselves  in  unseemly  rai- 
ments.1 

1  Suet.  Oct.  44. :  "  Sanxitque  ne  pullatorum  quisquam  media  cavea  sederet." 
Compare  Calpurnius,  at  a  much  later  period,  Eel.  vii.  26. : 
"  Venimus  ad  sedes  ubi  pulla  sordida  veste 
Inter  fcemineas  spectabat  turba  cathedraa." 


42  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

"We  have  already  seen  how  the  proprieties  of  dress  and 
demeanour  were  again  rigidly  enforced.    The  public  enter- 
tainments presented  an  image  of  the  Roman  state, 

Restrictions  on          .,  ^  .. .    £  .       ,    A 

the  manumis-     and  there  at  least  the  citizen  was  required  to  ap- 

sion  of  slaves.  .       ,,  ,,    -,  .       , ,  /•   .  i  • 

pear  in  full  dress,  in  the  costume  of  the  ancient 
Quirites.  He  was  forbidden  to  reject  the  warm  and  cum- 
brous toga  for  the  light  habiliments  of  slaves  and  foreigners. 
The  practice  in  which  knights  and  even  senators  had  some- 
times indulged,  of  showing  their  skill  in  dancing  and  acting 
upon  the  public  stage,  was  now  sternly  prohibited.  The  Ro- 
man must  give  way  neither  to  ease  nor  vanity.  But  the 
primitive  sense  of  personal  dignity  could  scarcely  be  retained 
by  men  who  had  lost  the  support  of  conscious  freedom,  and 
the  irregularities  thus  denounced  were  ready  at  every  moment 
to  break  out  again,  upon  the  slightest  relaxation  of  vigilance 
in  the  government.  By  imposing  a  tax  upon  the  manumission 
of  slaves  Augustus  might  hope  to  limit  in  some  degree  the 
infusion  of  new  and  base  blood  into  the  veins  of  the  body 
politic,  and  no  considerations  of  humanity  withheld  him  from 
a  measure  which  must  have  tended  to  worsen  the  condition 
of  that  unfortunate  class.  The  mild  influence  of  social  tran- 
quillity had  not  yet  succeeded  in  softening,  as  was  certainly 
the  case  in  some  respects  at  a  later  period,  the  callous  indiffer- 
ence to  human  suffering  engendered  by  the  habits  and  institu- 
tions of  a  race  of  conquerors.  The  horrible  punishment  Au- 
gustus inflicted  on  the  slaves  who  had  enlisted  under  Sextus 
Pompeius,  consigning  them  by  thousands  to  the  cross  as  fugi- 
tives, was  a  punctilious  recurrence  to  the  prescriptions  of 
ancient  law,  and  was  no  doubt  applauded  by  the  mass  of  the 
citizens  as  a  wholesome  exercise  of  authority  for  the  safety 
of  the  state.  But  unfortunately  we  can  discover  no  certain 
trace  of  any  later  measures  of  the  same  emperor  for  ameliorat- 
ing the  condition  of  servitude,  though  one.  anecdote  at  least  is 
told  of  his  interfering  to  save  a  slave's  life,  and  another  of 
his  refusing  to  punish  the  murder  of  an  odious  master.1 

1  Dion,  liv.  23.    Senec.  Nat.  Quezst.  i.  16.     The  lex  Petronia,  by  which 
masters  were  forbidden  to  sell  their  slaves  to  the  exhibitors  of  combats  with 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  43 

The  discreet  usurper,  who  shrinks  from  the  name  of  a 
revolutionist,  will  seek,  by  controlling  the  interpretation  of 
existing  laws,  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  enacting 

,/  &   Jurispru- 

new.  Such  was  eminently  the  policy  of  Augus-  dence  of  AU- 
tus.  The  legislation  of  the  Triumvirate,  if  to  its  s 
arbitrary  decrees  such  a  title  may  be  applied,  consisted  chiefly 
in  indulgences  accorded  to  certain  classes  or  interests ;  and 
these  the  new  ruler,  after  faintly  excusing  them  on  the  plea 
of  momentary  necessity,  surrendered  to  be  absolutely  an- 
nulled.1 His  own  special  enactments  were  directed,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  the  permanent  reconstruction  of  society  upon 
the  basis  of  at  least  a  pretended  antiquity.  Every  deviation 
from  ancient  forms  was  carefully  disguised  or  plausibly  pal- 
liated. The  great  body  of  the  Roman  law  existed  for  the 
most  part  in  a  mass  of  traditional  precedents,  upon  which 
the  judicial  magistrates  formed  their  own  system  of  procedure. 
Their  arbitrary  conclusions  were  controlled  however  by  the 
general  interpretation  of  the  learned,  the  patrician  juriscon- 
sults, who  still  claimed,  with  more  or  less  success,  to  be  the 
privileged  expounders  of  the  sense  of  antiquity  in  these  mat- 
ters, and  were  still  consulted,  if  not  strictly  obeyed,  by  the 
advocates  of  their  own  class.  Thus  when  Servius  Sulpicius, 
the  greatest  or  at  least  the  second,  as  a  learned  jurist  calls 
him,  of  Roman  pleaders,  was  in  doubt  on  a  point  of  law  in- 
volved in  a  cause  with  which  he  was  concerned,  he  asked  the 
opinion  of  Mucius  Scaevola.  Not  perfectly  understanding  the 
reply  vouchsafed  to  him,  he  laid  his  difficulty  a  second,  and 
again  a  third  time,  before  the  oracle ;  and  at  last  submitted 
to  the  severe  rebuke,  that  it  was  shameful  for  a  patrician,  a 
noble  and  an  advocate,  to  be  ignorant  of  the  law  which  he 
had  to  administer.  Thereupon  he  applied  himself  so  dili- 

wild  beasts,  has  been  referred  by  many  commentators  to  Augustus.  But  the 
term  lex,  on  which  they  mainly  depend,  continued  to  be  sometimes  used  after  the 
abolition  of  the  ancient  forms  of  legislation,  and  other  critics  ascribe  this  law 
with  more  probability  to  the  time  of  Nero.  Troplong,  Influence  du  Christian- 
isme  sur  le  droit  Romain,  part  ii.  chap.  ii. 
1  A.  r.  726.  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  28. ;  Dion,  liii.  2. 


44  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

gently  to  the  abstruse  study,  as  to  acquire  the  highest  reputa- 
tion therein  of  any  of  his  countrymen,  and  to  leave  them  no 
less  than  a  hundred  and  eighty  volumes  of  commentaries  on 
the  subject,  to  become  a  standard  authority  with  succeeding 
generations.1  Such  influence  as  a  Scaevola  or  a  Sulpicius  could 
thus  exert  Augustus  sought  to  gain  to  his  own  side.  His 
appointment  indeed  of  the  pra?tors  secured  him  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  law  in  all  matters  affecting  his  interests,  as  far 
as  the  edict  of  these  magistrates  could  go ;  but  he  shrank 
from  suffering  the  law  to  issue  solely  from  the  mouth  of  his 
own  officers.  The  middle  course  which  he  devised  was  to 
suppress  the  right  of  giving  opinions  hitherto  possessed  in 
theory  by  all  patricians  indiscriminately,  and  restrict  it  to 
such  among  them  as  he  chose  himself  to  licence,  ostensibly  at 
least  for  their  eminent  knowledge  and  character.  This  change 
was  not  perhaps  in  fact  so  startling  as  it  appears ;  for  the 
practice  of  the  jurisconsult's  prerogative  had  fallen  into  gen- 
eral disuse,  and  was  actually  confined  to  a  small  number  of 
devoted  professors  of  the  science.  Such  however  as  it  was,  it 
led  the  way  to  the  systematic  development  of  legal  principles, 
which,  as  it  was  the  greatest  creation  of  the  imperial  system, 
became  also  the  firmest  bulwark  of  its  authority,  cementing 
in  one  massive  structure  the  work  of  a  series  of  revolutions, 
and  throwing  a  legitimate  sanction  over  mere  military  force.* 
This  review  of  the  legislation  of  Augustus  must  be  closed 
with  some  general  remarks  upon  the  policy  which  directed  it. 

1  Pomponius  in  Digest,  i.  2.  42. 

*  Pomponius  (Dig.  L  2.  47.)  gives  a  curious  account  of  the  two  schools  of 
juridical  authorities  which  sprang  from  the  teaching  of  Ateius  Capito  and 
Antistius  Labeo  respectively.  The  first  of  these  learned  men  had  yielded  to 
the  imperial  blandishments,  and  accepted  the  consulship  as  the  price  of  his 
subserviency  ;  the  other  maintained  a  sturdy  independence,  devoting  himself 
entirely  to  the  business  of  his  profession.  The  followers  of  Capito  were  at- 
tached to  the  old  traditions;  those  of  Labeo  were  innovators  and  original 
speculators ;  the  one  was  succeeded  by  Masurius  Sabinus,  Cassius  Longinus, 
Cffilius  Sabinus,  Priscus  Javolenus,  Valens,  Tuscianus,  and  Julianus ;  the  other 
by  Cocceius  Nerva,  Proculus,  Pegasus,  Celsus  father  and  son,  and  Priscus  Xe- 
ratius.  For  the  characters  of  Capito  and  Labeo  see  Tacitus,  Ann.  iii.  76. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  4.5 

The  name  of  Julius  Caesar  \vas  the  watchword 
which  had  cheered  the  legions  of  Octavius  on  to  policy  of  AU- 
victory,  and  it  continued  dear  to  the  mass  of  the 
Roman  citizens,  by  whom  the  conqueror  of  the  oligarchs  was 
still  regarded  as  the  legitimate  descendant  of  Marius  and  the 
avenger  of  the  Sullan  massacres.  But  the  popular  writers  of 
the  Augustan  era,  who  reflected  the  sentiments  of  the  court 
rather  than  of  the  people,  seem  to  have  shared  in  a  very  trifling 
degree  this  general  enthusiasm.  Their  almost  total  silence 
on  Caesar's  merits, — for  Virgil  rarely  and  Horace  never  once 
celebrates  his  praises, — must  be  taken  as  significant  of  the 
peculiar  views  and  policy  of  their  patron.1  The  merits  of  the 
father  and  the  son  were  so  distinct  that,  had  such  been  the 
pleasure  of  Augustus,  he  could  have  afforded  to  lavish  the 
highest  honours  on  the  memory  of  his  predecessor,  without 
subjecting  his  own  well-earned  fame  to  any  disparagement. 
The  genial  tributes  of  the  Latin  muse  would  have  warmed  the 
feelings  of  the  Romans  towards  their  benefactor  more  effect- 
ually, had  such  been  his  desire,  than  the  frigid  compliments  of 
a  temple  and  a  priesthood.  But  Augustus,  who  affected  to 
be  the  Caesar  of  Peace,  had  a  political  motive  for  throwing 
into  the  shade  the  glories  of  the  hero  of  Pharsalia.  The  death 
of  his  last  rival  Antonius  operated  a  complete  change  both  in 
his  temper  and  his  aspirations.  Henceforth  the  princeps,  or 
leader  of  the  senate,  succeeds  to  the  triumvir,  as  the  triumvir 
had  succeeded  to  the  dictator.  He  now  approaches  more  and 
more  closely  to  the  aristocracy,  against  which  in  his  early 
years  he  had  waged  a  war  of  extermination.  He  opens  his 
arms  to  it,,  he  devotes  to  its  interests  without  reserve  all  the 
powers  he  has  received  from  the  triumphant  democracy. 

1  The  name  of  the  first  Caesar  ia  only  once  introduced  by  Horace,  to  com- 
pliment Augustus  as  "Caesaris  ultor."  The  allusion  to  the  "Julium  sidus" 
applies,  perhaps,  to  the  Julian  family  generally.  When  Tydides  is  said  to  be 
"  melior  patre,"  it  is  meant  to  remind  us  that  Augustus  was  more  illustrious 
than  his  father.  Ovid  has  a  similar  comparison,  Metam.  xv.  760.:  "Neque 
enim  de  Caesaris  actia  Ullum  majus  opus  quam  quod  pater  exstitit  hujus." 
Virgil  mentions  Caesar  only  three  times ;  Eel.  ix.  127.,  Geo.  i.  466.,  j£n.  vi. 
626. ;  and  Propertius  never.  See  Orelli'a  note  on  Horace,  Od.  i,  12.  47. 


4:6  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Towards  so  generous  a  conqueror  the  nobles  could  not  long 
retain  their  feelings  of  rancour,  nor  persist  in  refusing  him 
their  support,  when  they  found  him  full  of  the  most  amiable 
dispositions  towards  them,  when  he  promised  and  strove  with 
energy  and  discretion  to  revive  their  ancient  consideration, 
and  more  than  compensate  them  for  their  losses,  when  he  pro- 
moted to  the  highest  offices  the  son  of  the  murdered  Cicero 
and  a  friend  of  the  persecuted  Brutus,1  when,  in  short,  by 
flattery  and  condescension  he  sought  to  efface  the  crime  of  his 
origin,  and  the  revolutionary  recollections  of  Mutina  and  Mun- 
da.  They  listened  with  admiration  to  his  accustomed  theses 
on  Resistance  and  Conservation,  Reaction  and  Restitution  ; 
on  a  projected  system  of  government  which  he  propounded 
as  the  best,  the  best  at  least  which  the  times  admitted,  the 
only  system,  in  fact,  by  which  the  illustrious  republic  of  Rome 
could  be  preserved ;  a  system  which  he  is  proud  to  call  his 
own,  though  built  on  the  old  foundations  and  constructed  of 
the  old  materials  overthrown  by  the  earthquake  of  civil  strife ; 
with  no  other  ambition,  as  he  fervently  asseverated,  than  to 
be  called  the  restorer  of  the  commonwealth,  and  bear  away 
in.  dying  the  conviction  that  his  work  will  survive  him." 

How  carefully  this  system  was  contrived  to  interest  the 

higher  class,  while  it  tranquillized  the  restless  spirits  of  the 

lower,  has  been  seen  in  the  details  of  this  and 

Augustus  con-  . 

gratniates  him-  former  chapters.    To  the  one  it  held  out  the  pros- 

eelfonthe  /» »  11  ,  i  >i     •       i       i      i 

accomplish-       pect  oi  honourable  employment,  while  it  checked 

1  M.  Tullius  Cicero  was  consul  suffect  in  the  year  724:  Dion,  li.  19.     A 
son  of  Crassus  the  triumvir  held  the  same  office  in  that  year  also.     Sestius,  the 
friend  of  Brutus,  was  promoted  to  the  consulship  in  731.    The  family  of  the 
great  orator  ended  in  the  second  generation  in  a  contemptible  drunkard.    See 
the  stories  of  this  Cicero's  excesses  in  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  xxii.  8.,  xiv.  28.     Senec. 
de  Benef.  iv.  30.    We  may  suppose  that  he  had  forfeited  his  self-respect  after 
accepting  the  consulship  from  the  slayer  of  his  father. 

2  Suet.  Oct.  28. :  "Quam  Toluntatem  (retinendi  Imp.)  quum  prse  se  iden- 
tidem  ferret,  quodam  etiam  edicto  hia  verbis  testatus  est :  Ita  mihi  salvam  ac  sos- 
pitam  rempublicam  sistere  in  sua  sede  liceat,  atque  ejus  rei  fructum  percipere 
quern  peto,  ut  optimi  status  auctor  dicar,  et  moriens  ut  feram  mecum  spem 
mansura  in  vestigio  suo  fundamenta  reipublicse  quse  jecero.    Fecitque  ipse  se 
compotem  TOti,  nisus  omni  modo  ne  quern  novi  status  pceniteret." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  47 

every  prompting  of  ambition  ;  to  the  other  it  sub-  ment  of  MS  pa- 

».     *    j  A  „  ,  T         trioticBchemes. 

stituted  amusement  lor  occupation,  shows  and  lar- 
gesses for  military  service  :  and  such  a  system,  while  it  can  be 
maintained,  affords  no  doubt  great  facilities  to  the  march  of 
administration.  To  the  nobles  Augustus  could  boast  that  the 
dictator  had  refused  to  be  crowned  a  king,  but  had  himself 
offered  to  restore  the  sword  of  the  imperator.  He  vaunted 
the  victories  he  had  gained  over  the  national  foes,  and  the 
glory  the  state  had  acquired  under  his  direction  of  its  foreign 
relations.  He  pointed  to  the  sacrifices  he  had  made  for  the 
general  weal,  and  compared  himself  to  a  Mucius,  a  Curtius, 
or  a  Decius.  Think  not,  he  exclaimed,  that  the  ancients  alone 
were  true  patriots  ;  behold  in  me  a  living  proof  that  the  love 
of  Home  burns  still  bright  in  her  children.  Such  was  the 
spirit  of  the  old  patricians,  and  such  still  exists  in  the  bosom 
of  the  high-born  offspring  of  Quirinus.  They  are  the  true 
rulers  and  fathers  of  the  commonwealth :  fear  not  that  I  will 
ever  abandon  it  to  the  sway  of  an  unprincipled  democracy : 
no  ! — sooner  will  I  perish,  sooner  KEIGN  !  He  thus  held  out 
to  them  the  dire  figure  of  royalty  in  the  furthest  distance,  as 
a  monster  to  be  invoked  only  in  the  last  necessity  to  save  the 
world  from  chaos.  So  far  from  taking  away  the  life  of  a 
single  citizen  to  obtain  the  crown,  he  would  sooner  lose  his 
own  life  than  wear  one !  a  life,  be  it  remarked,  which  the 
gods  will  surely  protect,  as  they  have  avenged  the  death  of 
Caesar.1  To  the  people  he  affirmed  that  the  sway  of  Rome 
over  the  nations  was  now  completed  and  assured.  All  na- 
tions should  bring  their  tribute  to  the  Capitol ;  the  Roman, 
proud  and  untaxed,  should  enjoy  the  fruits  of  every  zone  and 
climate.  Every  gale  should  waft  corn  to  Italy,  to  be  lavished 
on  the  citizens  by  the  hand  of  their  friend  and  benefactor. 
The  Roman  should  fold  his  arms  in  indolence  and  satiety, 
while  his  subjects  should  labour  and  his  rulers  think  for  him. 
To  his  countrymen,  one  and  all,  Augustus  could  allege  that  he 
had  secured  the  stability  of  their  institutions  by  his  piety  to 
the  gods.  He  had  bribed  Olympus  by  gifts  in  which  the  im- 
1  See  the  supposed  harangue  of  Augustus  in  Dion,  liii.  6.  foil. 


48  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

mortals  delighted.  He  had  set  up  their  fallen  altars,  repaired 
their  temples,  revived  their  services,  and  rekindled  the  flame  of 
devotion  hi  the  heart  of  the  nation.  To  his  own  fortunes  and 
to  the  fortunes  of  the  state  he  had  attached  the  powers  of  heaven 
for  ever.1  From  the  gods  he  had  descended  to  rehabilitate  the 
ancient  heroes  of  his  country,  restoring  their  monuments,  re- 
erecting  their  images,  surrounded  with  triumphal  ornaments, 
and  placing  them  under  the  colonnades  of  his  own  spacious  fo- 
rum, as  the  witnesses  and  patrons  of  the  glory  he  had  achieved. 
The  city  itself  had  participated  in  his  pious  solicitude.  He 
honours  her  as  a  mother  and  a  tutelary  influence,  almost  as  a 
goddess  herself.  For  her  embellishment  he  constructs  many 
magnificent  works,  and  requires  the  wealthy  and  the  noble  to 
follow  his  example ;  for  he  is  not  an  Oriental  potentate,  but 
only  the  first  of  his  own  rank  of  citizens.  Indignant  at  the 
inundations  which  periodically  overwhelm,  and  the  conflagra- 
tions which  so  frequently  devastate  her,  he  projects  her  re- 
storation upon  a  scale  of  greater  security  and  splendour,  and 
boasts  at  last,  as  the  crowning  merit  of  his  administration, 
that  he  found  her  of  brick  and  has  left  her  of  marble.9 

In  reflecting  upon  the  easy  acquiescence  of  the  Romans  in 
a  regal  tyranny,  disguised  under  such  transparent  pretensions, 
Prospect  of  we  must  not  forget  that  they  were  not  in  a  po- 
di°coau?Kto  sition  *°  anticipate  the  rapid  decline  in  public 
the  Roman*,  gpjrit  which  from  this  time  actually  took  place 
among  them.  Apart  from  an  antique  prejudice,  of  which  the 
wisest  statesmen  may  have  well  been  ashamed,  royal  rule 
could  not  imply,  to  their  minds,  degeneracy  and  decay.  Un- 
der the  sceptre  of  Philip  the  Macedonians  had  conquered 
Greece ;  under  Alexander  they  had  subjugated  Asia.  The 
Spartans  had  flourished  under  a  dynasty  of  kings ;  even  the 

I  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  62. :  "  Nee  satis  est  homines,  obligat  ille  deos." 

II  Suet.  Oct.  29. :  "  Urbem,  neque  pro  maj  estate  imperii  oraatam,  et  imm- 
dationibus  incendiisque  obnoxiam,  excoluit  adeo  ut  jure  sit  gloriatus,  marmo- 
ream  se  relinquere  quam  latericiam  aceepisset."     Comp.  Dion,  Ivi.  80.,  who 
puts  the  same  expression  in  Greek,  and  adds  the  moral  interpretation :   TOVTO 
ov  irpby  ri  TWV  ojKoSojUTjjUOTWK  avrfjs  cucpijSe'j,  oAAo  wpbj  rb  TTJJ  apx*i*  l<rxvP^v 


UNDER  THE   EMPIKE.  49 

Romans  themselves,  it  might  be  remembered,  had  first  proved 
their  youthful  energies  under  the  auspices  of  a  Romulus  and 
a  Tullus.  They  were  far,  therefore,  from  anticipating  that 
the  greatness  and  glory  of  their  country  would  decline  under 
a  prince's  sway ;  it  was  only  in  the  last  agonies  of  an  imprac- 
ticable republic  that  their  valour  had  earned  them  no  tri- 
umphs.1 For  the  maintenance  of  the  living  powers  of  the 
state  they  looked,  not  so  much  to  the  effect  of  free  action  and 
discussion,  as  to  certain  established  principles  of  social  organi- 
zation. They  put  their  trust,  not  in  a  free  press  and  public 
opinion,  but  in  the  subordination  of  classes,  the  hierarchy  of 
families,  the  customs  of  antiquity,  and  the  traditions  of  reli- 
gion. Generally  speaking,  law,  in  the  view  of  the  ancients, 
was  something  divine  and  permanent,  the  exponent  of  certain 
eternal  necessities ;  whereas  we  allow  ourselves  to  regard  it 
as  little  else  than  the  fleeting  expression  of  every  mood  of  the 
national  existence.  Hence  the  undoubting  faith  of  the  Ro- 
mans in  sumptuary  legislation ;  that  is,  in  the  attempt  to  re- 
store, without  regard  to  outward  change  in  the  circumstances 
of  society,  the  prescriptions  of  a  normal  antiquity.  Hence 
the  conviction  of  Augustus  and  his  contemporaries,  that  in 
merely  reviving  ancient  traditions,  he  was  raising  to  life  the 
dead  bones  of  the  past,  and  launching  his  country  upon  a  new 
career  of  growth  and  development. 

In  his  personal  habits  and  demeanour  Augustus  carefully 
distinguished  between  the  Imperator  and  the  Princeps.  He 

1  Lucan,  L  12. :  "Bella  geri  placuit  nullos  habitura  triumphos."  The 
opening  lines  of  the  Pharsalia  deserve  to  be  studied  from  this  point  of  view ; 
as  for  instance : 

"  Heu  quantum  terrae  potuit  pelagique  parari, 
Hoc  quern  civiles  hauserunt  sanguine  dextrae  .... 
Sub  juga  jam  Seres,  jam  barbarus  isset  Araxes"  .... 
When  after  a  century's  experience  the  empire  was  declared  to  be  barren  of 
laurels,  Lucan  expresses  the  mortification  of  his  class  in  bitter  language : 
"  Sed  retro  tua  fata  tulit,  par  omnibus  annis, 
jEmathiae  funesta  dies  :  hac  luce  cruenta 
Effectum,  ut  Latios  non  horreat  India  fasces ; 
Nee  vetitos  errare  Dahas  in  mcenia  ducat, 
Sarmaticumque  premat  succinctus  consul  aratrum." 

VOL.  IV. 4 


50  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Moderation  in  protected  his  personal  dignity  "by  withdrawing 
babSTof  !AU-  from  the  indecent  familiarity  with  which  Julius 
guBtu8.  Caesar  had  allowed  himself  to  address  his  legion- 

aries. The  conqueror  of  the  Gauls  had  deigned  to  call  the  in- 
struments of  his  victories  by  the  name  of  fellow-soldiers  ;  but 
Augustus,  whether  in  his  edicts  or  his  harangues,  never  spoke 
of  them  but  as  his  "  soldiers  "  only.  At  a  later  period  he  forbade 
the  princes  of  his  family  to  employ  any  other  term  than  this  in 
communication  with  them ;  a  prohibition  in  which  there  was  a 
little  pride,  and  perhaps  also  a  little  jealousy.1  At  the  same 
time,  however,  as  the  prince  of  the  senate  and  the  people,  he  did 
not  fail  studiously  to  disguise  all  consciousness  of  his  deserts, 
and  shrank  from  the  appearance  of  claiming  the  honours  due  to 
him.  Amidst  the  magnificence  displayed  around  him,  which 
he  chose  to  encourage  in  his  nobles,  his  own  manners  were  re- 
markable for  their  simplicity,  and  were  regulated,  not  by  his 
actual  pre-eminence,  but  by  the  position  he  aflected  to  occupy, 
of  a  modest  patrician.  His  mansion  on  the  Palatine  hill  was 
moderate  in  size  and  decoration,  and  he  showed  his  contempt 
for  the  voluptuous  appliances  of  patrician  luxury  by  retaining 
the  same  bedchamber  both  in  winter  and  summer.8  His  dress 
was  that  of  a  plain  senator,  and  he  let  it  be  known  that  his 
robe  was  woven  by  the  hands  of  Livia  herself  and  the  maidens 
of  her  apartment.  He  was  seen  to  traverse  the  streets  as  a 
private  citizen,  with  no  more  than  the  ordinary  retinue  of 
slaves  and  clients,  addressing  familiarly  the  acquaintances 
he  met,  taking  them  courteously  by  the  hand,  or  leaning 
on  their  shoulders,  allowing  himself  to  be  summoned  as  a 
witness  in  their  suits,  and  often  attending  in  their  houses 

1  Suet.  Jul.  67. :  "  Nee  milites  eos  pro  condone,  sed  blandiori  nomine 
commilitones  appellabat."  Oct.  25. :  "Ambitiosius  id  existimans." 

3  Suet.  Oct.  72.  There  is  something  interesting  in  the  care  with  which 
the  Romans  traced  their  honoured  emperor  from  one  of  his  residences  to 
another,  and  probably  rising  a  little  above  the  last  in  the  scale  of  sumptuous- 
ness:  "Habitavit  primo  juxta  Romanum  forum,  supra  scalas  annularias,  in 
domo  quae  Calvi  oratoris  fuerat ;  postea  in  palatio ;  sed  nihilominus  sedibus 
modicis  Hortensianis ;  et  neque  laxitate  neque  cultu  conspicuia,"  &c.  Com  p. 
Dion,  liii.  16.,  Iv.  12. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  gl 

on  occasions  of  domestic  interest.1  At  table  his  habits  were 
sober  and  decorous,  and  his  mode  of  living  abstemious :  he 
was  generally  the  last  to  approach  and  the  earliest  to  quit  the 
board.3  His  guests  were  few  in  number,  and  chosen,  for  the 
most  part,  for  their  social  qualities :  Virgil  and  Horace,  the 
plebeian  poets,  were  as  welcome  to  his  hours  of  recreation  as 
Pollio  or  Messala.  His  conversation  turned  on  subjects  of 
intellectual  interest ;  he  disdained  the  amusement  which  the 
vulgar  rich  derived  from  dwarfs,  idiots,  and  monsters.8  Some 
ribald  stories  were  current  respecting  his  private  habits,  which 
the  citizens  gratified  themselves  with  repeating,  though  at- 
taching, perhaps,  little  credit  to  them.  The  future  restorer 
of  religion,  and  patron  of  the  Olympian  hierarchy,  had  amused 
himself,  it  was  said,  while  yet  triumvir,  amidst  a  crew  of  boon 
companions,  with  assuming  at  a  banquet  the  names  and  attri- 
butes of  the  twelve  greater  gods.4  The  guardian  of  manners 
and  reviver  of  the  ancient  purity  was  affirmed,  in  a  similar 
spirit  of  detraction  and  pasquinade,  to  have  courted,  some- 
times in  the  rudest  and  most  open  manner,  the  wives  of  the 
noblest  Romans ;  not  from  unbridled  appetite,  for  his  power 
of  self-control  was  unquestioned  ; 6  but  in  order,  as  his  apolo- 
gists averred,  to  extract  from  his  paramours  the  political  se- 
crets of  their  consorts.9  Such  stories,  however,  if  actually 
current  at  the  time,  made  little  impression  upon  the  public ; 

1  Suet.  Oct.  53. ;  Quintil.  Inst.  Oral.  vi.  3.  59. ;  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  4. 
a  Suet.  Oct.  74.  76,  77. 

3  Suet.  Oct.  83. :  "  Nam  pumilos  et  distortos  et  omnes  generis  ejusdem  ut 
ludibria  quaedam  naturae  malique  ominis  abhorrebat." 

*  Suet.  Oct.  70. :  "  Csena  quoque  secretior  in  fabulis  fuit  quse  SteSeieddfos 
vocabatur."    This  and  many  other  stories  against  Octavius  might  be  traced  to 
the  invention  of  Antonius.     It  had  been  generally  forgotten,  we  may  presume, 
when  Horace  could  venture  to  sing : 

"  Quos  inter  Augustus  recumbens 

Purpureo  bibit  ore  nectar." 

5  See  an  anecdote  of  the  continence  of  the  young  Octaviua  in  Nicolaus 
Damascenus,  Vit.  August.  5.  15. 

*  Suet.  Oct.  69. :  "  Adulteria  qusedam  exercuisse  ne  amici  quidem  negant ; 
excusantes  sane  non  libidine  sed  ratione  commissa,  quo  facilius  consilia  adver- 
sariorum  per  cujusque  mulieres  exquireret." 


52  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

they  were  too  commonly  reported  of  all  conspicuous  charac- 
ters to  take  hold  of  the  convictions  of  the  multitude  ;  nor  did 
the  great  man  himself  think  it  always  necessary  to  reply  to 
them.  Augustus  refrained,  with  remarkable  firmness,  from 
checking  the  licentiousness  of  his  personal  detractors  by  legal 
procedure.1 

But  if  Augustus  had  the  good  sense  to  bear  with  temper 
the  virulence  of  clandestine  lampooners,  which  he  knew  would 
jealousy  of  AU-  evaporate  as  soon  as  it  reached  the  air,  he  was 
fheBtpoet  cor°  not  ^e  ^ess  vigilant  in  marking,  and  stern  in  re- 
neiiuB  Gaiius.  pressing,  all  acts  of  defiance  or  presumption  on 
the  part  -of  his  subjects.  The  mild  and  affable  patrician, 
whose  whole  heart  seemed  to  be  wrapped  up  in  schemes  for 
the  promotion  of  general  prosperity  and  individual  comfort, 
was  changed  at  once  into  a  jealous  tyrant  at  the  first  sign  of 
political  rivalry.  Painful  was  the  impression  made  upon  the 
public  mind  when  it  appeared,  from  one  melancholy  instance, 
that  the  mere  frown  of  so  kind  a  master  was  felt  as  a  dis- 
grace at  his  court,  and  that  disgrace  at  court  was  regarded 
as  no  other  than  a  sentence  of  death.  Cornelius  Gallus,  a 
Roman  knight,  a  man  of  fashion  and  accomplishments,  a  poet 
himself  of  considerable  mark,  and  the  companion  of  poets  and 
statesmen,  had  been  entrusted,  by  the  favour  of  Augustus, 
with  the  government  of  Egypt,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
had  done  him  faithful  service  in  repelling  the  solicitations  of 
Antonius.9  But  the  splendour  of  his  position,  as  the  first 
Roman  who  had  sate  on  the  throne  of  the  Ptolemies,  and  the 
flattery  of  the  cringing  Orientals,  who,  in  the  vicegerent  and 
servant  of  the  emperor,  beheld  the  successor  of  their  own 
absolute  sovereigns,  intoxicated  his  weak  and  vain  mind,  and 
he  suffered  his  subjects  to  erect  statues  in  his  honour,  and  in- 
scribe his  name  and  exploits  on  the  walls  of  the  pyramids. 

1  Suet.  Oct.  55. :  "  Etiam  sparsos  de  se  in  curia  famosos  libellos  nee  expa- 
vit,  nee  magna  cura  redarguit."    Comp.  Tac.  Ann.  i.  72. 

2  Gallus  was  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame  as  an  amatory  poet  before  the 
reputation  of  any  of  his  contemporaries  was  established.     Even  at  a  later 
period  Ovid  speaks  of  him  as  inferior  to  none  of  them.    Amor.  i.  15.  29. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  53 

Li  a  senator  and  a  proconsul  such  conduct  might  have  given 
no  pretext  for  complaint ;  but  the  case  of  the  government  of 
Egypt  was  exceptional :  the  jealousy  of  the  emperor  was  pe- 
culiarly sensitive  in  regard  to  every  act  and  word  of  his  factor 
at  Alexandria ;  and  the  indiscretions  of  Gallus  were  magnified 
into  a  charge  of  treason  against  the  interests  of  the  republic. 
The  senators,  before  whose  tribunal  the  culprit  was  arraigned 
on  the  motion  of  one  of  their  own  order,  hastened  with  ready 
adulation  to  declare  him  guilty,  and  desired  his  removal  from 
his  command.  Augustus  appointed  an  officer  to  supersede 
him,  and  required  his  presence  in  Rome.  On  his  return  the 
loss  of  his  master's  favour,  the  cold  reception  he  encountered 
from  the  courtiers,  the  sense  of  disgrace  and  the  apprehension 
of  severer  punishment  so  worked  upon  his  weak  mind,  that 
he  threw  himself  upon  his  own  sword.  Augustus  was  him- 
self shocked  at  this  unexpected  catastrophe ;  it  impressed,  no 
doubt,  upon  him  a  painful  conviction  of  his  own  isolation :  he 
was  sincere,  we  may  believe,  in  rebuking  the  excessive  zeal 
of  the  officious  and  selfish  accusers,  and  complained  that  he 
was  the  only  citizen  who  could  not  be  angry  with  a  friend 
without  making  him  an  enemy.1  Nevertheless  the  dependents 
of  the  court  seemed  to  have  distrusted  the  sincerity  of  these 
regrets.  They  hastened  to  abjure  their  connexion  with  the 
fallen  favourite.  Virgil,  at  the  instigation,  it  is  said,  of  Au- 
gustus himself,  suppressed  a  poetical  compliment  to  the  prince 
of  Roman  elegy,  and  replaced  a  genuine  tribute  of  regard 
and  admiration  with  a  very  pretty  but  a  very  foolish  fable." 

The  senators,  yet  unconscious  of  the  peril  in  which  their 
own  order  stood,  had  perhaps  little  concern  for  the  fate  of 
an  upstart  knight,  while  the  murmurs  of  fear  and  discon- 

1  Suet.  Oct.  66. ;  Dion,  liii.  23. ;  Ammian.  Marcell.  xvii.  4. 

2  Donatus  in  Vit.  Virgil.  10.    It  was  believed  that  the  story  of  Aristseus, 
at  the  end  of  the  fourth  Georgic,  was  written  to  occupy  the  room  of  an  ad- 
dress to  Gallus,  which  the  poet  was  commanded  to  expunge.     This  account  is 
very  reasonably  questioned  by  Heyne :  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  place  the 
praises  of  Gallus  can  have  had  in  this  connexion,  whereas  the  fable  of  Aris- 
taeus  is  not  inappropriate,  and  may  be  thought  perhaps  to  elevate  by  its  fan- 
tastic supernaturalism  the  extreme  humility  of  the  general  subject. 


54  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

«<  civil "de-       tent  which  mav  have  issued  from  the  associates 

meanonrof  ,  „  _..        _  ., 

Augustus  at  of  the  victim  himself  were  speedily  drowned 
and  circus*8  in  the  strains  of  praise  and  flattery  with  which 
the  theatre  and  circus,  and  every  other  public  place,  resound- 
ed. The  admiration  of  the  citizens  was  divided  between  the 
splendour,  the  variety,  and  the  frequency  of  the  shows  their 
munificent  patron  exhibited.  The  attractions  of  these  were 
so  irresistible,  that  almost  every  house  in  Rome  was  deserted 
to  attend  them,  and  it  was  necessary  to  patrol  the  streets 
with  guards  on  the  days  of  spectacle  to  protect  the  property 
of  their  truant  inhabitants.1  It  is  said  that  Augustus  him- 
self partook  of  the  popular  taste  for  the  excitement  and  vul- 
gar pomp  of  these  shows,  and  acknowledged  an  interest  in 
them  which  was  not  generally  felt  by  the  more  refined  and 
intelligent.*  At  all  events  he  justly  regarded  them  as  one  of 
his  instruments  of  government :  it  was  civil,  in  the  Roman 
sense,  to  mingle  in  the  amusements  of  the  citizens ;  accord- 
ingly, if  business  prevented  him  from  attending,  he  always 
affected  to  ask  pardon  of  his  good  countrymen,  and  when 
present  he  was  careful  to  avoid  the  fault  of  Julius  Ca?sar, 
who  allowed  himself  to  read  and  write  letters  and  transact 
affairs  in  the  hours  devoted  to  general  relaxation.* 

The  constant  plenty  which  the  emperor's  prudent  meas- 
ures secured  for  Italy  and  the  city,  the  sudden  abundance  of 
The  people  *ne  precious  metals,  and  the  impetus  it  gave  to 
eei'vefon  ^|m"  the  transactions  of  trade  and  commerce,  the  ces- 
P^ce°4f  prS  sation  of  the  detested  recruiting  for  the  legions, 
which  was  now  relegated  to  the  provinces,  all 
combined  to  fulfil  the  wannest  anticipations  of  the  blessings 

1  Suet  Oct.  43. 

*  Aurel.  Victor,  Epit.  L  :  "  Quodque  est  laeti  animi  vel  amoeni,  oblectaba- 
tur  omni  genere  spectaculorum." 

1  Suet  Oct.  45. :  "  Quoties  adesset  nihil  praeterea  agebat :  seu  vitandi 
rumoris  causa,  quo  patrem  Caesarem  vulgo  reprehensum  commemorabat,  quod 
inter  spectandum  epistolis  libellisque  legendis  ac  rescribendis  vacaret ;  seu 
studio  spectandi  ac  voluptate,  qua  teneri  se  neque  dissimulavit  unquam,  ei 
saepe  ingenue  professus  est."  Comp.  Tac.  Ann.  i.  54. :  "  Xeque  ipse  abhorrebat 
a  talibus  studiis,  et  civile  rebatur,  misceri  voluptatibus  vulgi." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  55 

of  peace,  and  reduced  to  a  happy  reality  the  fervent  aspira- 
tions of  the  poets.1  Mildew  corroded  blade  and  spear-head, 
but  spared  the  growing  crops ;  the  sword  was  turned  into  a 
pruning-hook,  the  corslet  into  a  ploughshare ;  the  altar  of 
Peace  was  erected  solemnly  in  the  Roman  curia,  and  her  fes- 
tival was  celebrated  on  the  same  day  with  those  A-u  74L 
of  Janus,  of  Safety,  and  of  Concord.3  On  such  B- c- 13- 
occasions  the  praises  of  Augustus,  as  the  author  of  so  much 
happiness,  held  always  the  foremost  place.  Even  the  calami- 
ties of  the  city  were  turned  into  occasions  of  congratulation. 
Once  when  the  Tiber  overflowing  its  banks  caused  more  than 
usual  devastation,  the  augurs  interpreted  the  event  as  a  token 
of  the  swelling  greatness  of  the  emperor.  Thereupon  a  sena- 
tor named  Pacuvius  invited  the  citizens  to  devote  A  ^  727> 
their  lives  in  company  with  himself  to  the  life  of  B-  c- 27- 
Augustus,  that  is,  to  swear  not  to  survive  him.3  In  vain  did 
the  emperor  interfere  to  prevent  them  from  rushing  tumultu- 
ously  to  ofier  sacrifices  to  his  divinity.  Whenever  he  re- 
turned to  Rome  from  the  provinces  the  people  accom- 
panied him  home  with  hymns  and  acclamations,  and  care 
was  taken  that  on  such  auspicious  occasions  no  criminal 
should  be  capitally  punished.4  The  poets  urged  their  coun- 
trymen to  remember,  in  every  prayer  and  thanksgiving,  the 
restorer  of  order,  the  creator  of  universal  felicity.  In  the 
temples  on  days  of  public  service,  around  their  own  hearths 
on  every  ordinary  day,  they  were  invited  to  thank  the  gods 
for  all  their  prosperity,  and  with  the  gods  themselves  to  join 

1  Ovid,  Fast.  iv.  925. :  "  Aspera  Robigo  parcas  Cerealibus  herbis,"  &c. 
Comp.  Fast.  i.  701.  711.;  Tibull.  i.  2.  49. 

8  Ovid,  Fast.  i.  881.  (March  28.) : 

"  Janus  adorandus,  cumque  hoc  Concordia  mitis, 

Et  Romana  Salus,  araque  Pacis  erit." 
Comp.  Zonaras,  x.  34. 

*  Dion,  liii.  20.  This  devotion  he  characterises  as  after  the  manner  of  the 
Spaniards,  rov  TUV  'l&ypuv  -rp6irov.  Caesar  has  told  us  that  it  was  a  custom  of 
the  Aquitanians,  and  it  may  have  been  in  vogue  among  the  kindred  tribes  on 
both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees. 

4  Suet.  Oct.  57.     Dion,  li.  20. 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  hallowed  names  of  Troy,  of  Anchises,  and  of  JEneas,  the 
patrons  of  the  Julian  race.1  And  when  they  rose  from  the 
evening  meal  to  retire  to  rest,  the  last  duty  of  the  day,  they 
were  reminded,  was  to  call  with  a  modest  libation  for  a  bless- 
ing on  themselves,  and  on  Caesar,  the  Father  of  his  country." 
The  title  of  father  of  his  country  was  indeed  the  proudest 
any  Roman  could  obtain,  and  this  the  citizens  had  long  been 
The  title  of  accustomed  to  lavish,  privately  and  irregularly, 
roanferrfeadon  on  tneir  hero  ^  patron,  when  at  last  the  senate 
Augustus.  took  Up  tjje  voice  of  the  nation  and  conferred  it 
upon  him  with  due  solemnity.8  This  act,  however,  was  not 
sanctioned  by  a  formal  decree ;  it  seemed  perhaps  more  flat- 
tering to  give  it  the  appearance  of  spontaneous  acclamation. 
Valerius  Messala,  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  order,  was  de- 
puted by  his  colleagues  to  offer  the  title  to  the  emperor  in  the 
name  of  the  senate  and  people.  "  Conscript  Fathers"  replied 
Augustus  with  tears,  "  my  wishes  are  now  fulfilled,  my  vows 
are  accomplished.  I  have  nothing  more  to  ask  of  the  immor- 
tal gods,  but  that  I  may  retain  to  my  dying  day  the  unani- 
mous approbation  you  now  bestow  upon  me"  *  The  poet 
Ovid  could  declare  that  the  emperor  was  justly  designated 
the  father  of  his  country,  for  he  had  long  been  in  fact  the 
father  of  the  world.  To  him,  as  the  pacifier  of  the  nations, 
the  sovereigns  in  alliance  with  Rome  paid  homage  not  less 
zealously  than  his  own  compatriots.  In  various  kingdoms 

1  Horace,  Od.  iv.  15.: 

"  Nos  et  profestis  lucibus  et  sacris,"  etc. 
1  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  635. : 

"  Et  bene  nos,  patriae  bene  te  pater,  optime  Caesar, 
Dicite,  suffuso  per  sacra  Terba  mero." 

3  Suet.  Oct.  58.    Horace,  at  an  early  period  of  his  power :  "Hie  ames  dici 
Pater  atque  Princeps."    But  the  title  was  not  formally  conferred  before  752, 
on  the  nones  of  February,  in  the  13th  consulship  of  Augustus.     See  Spanheim, 
de  Usu  Num.  446.     Comp.  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  127. : 

"  Sancte  Pater  patriae,  tibi  Plebs,  tibi  Curia  nomen 
Hoc  dedit,  hoc  dedimus  nos  tibi  nomen  Eques. 
Res  tamen  ante  dedit :  sero  quoque  vera  tulisti 
Nbmina:  jam  pridem  tu  Pater  Orbis  eras." 

4  Suet.  Oct.  1.  c. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  5f 

of  the  East  they  founded  cities  which  they  dignified  with  the 
name  of  Caesarea.  They  combined  for  the  completion  of  the 
great  temple,  long  before  commenced,  of  Jupiter  Olympus  at 
Athens,  and  finally  dedicated  it  to  the  genius  of  Augustus. 
They  descended  from  their  thrones  to  seek  him  in  his  capital, 
or  wherever  they  might  overtake  him  in  his  progress  through 
the  provinces ;  divesting  themselves  in  his  presence  of  the 
diadem  and  the  purple,  and  donning  the  toga  of  plain  Roman 
citizenship,  as  clients  attending  on  a  noble  patron.1 

The  estimation  in  which  the  founder  of  the  empire  was 
held  by  the  citizens  and  by  foreigners  is  thus  established,  not 
from  the  colours  in  which  historians  have  pour- 

_  ,  .  .  _  A  Considerations 

trayed  his  career,  but  from  the  unsuspected  testi-  on  the  source 

f,  -,,    ,         ,          .1        •„•  TIT  of  Roman  his- 

mony  of  many  collateral  authorities.  We  may  toryattMs 
now  proceed  to  examine  in  detail,  as  far  as  our  p 
means  allow,  the  incidents  of  an  administration  which  has 
left  on  the  whole  such  a  solemn  impression  of  respect.  These 
incidents  are  related  in  a  consecutive  narrative  by  only  one 
writer  of  antiquity,  nor  till  after  an  interval  of  nearly  200 
years.  And  even  this  writer  admits  in  striking  language  the 
imperfection  of  his  materials,  and  explains  the  cause  of  the  un- 
certainty which  pervades  all  Roman  history  from  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  empire.  "  Thus"  says  Dion,  "  was  the  Roman 
commonwealth  reduced  to  a  better  and  securer  form, :  and  in- 
deed it  was  no  longer  possible  for  it  to  exist  under  popular 
rule.  Henceforth,  however,  its  affairs  can  no  longer  be  written 
as  heretofore.  For  hitherto  every  transaction,  whether  at 
home  or  abroad,  was  referred  to  the  cognisance  of  the  senate 
and  people,  and  accordingly  all  public  affairs  were  generally 
known,  and.many  related  them  in  writing.  Although,  there- 
fore, many  authors  were  swayed  by  fear  or  favour,  by  love  or 
hatred,  yet  the  truth  might  generally  be  discovered  by  the  com- 
parison of  one  with  another,  combined  with  the  examination 
of  public  records.  But  from  henceforth  affairs  began  to  be 

1  Suet.  Oct.  60. :  Comp.  Eutrop.  vii.  5.  Cities  of  the  name  of  Caesarea 
were  founded  in  Palestine,  Galatia,  Pisidia,  Bithynia,  Cilicia,  Armenia,  and 
Mauretania.  See  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  v.  vi. 


58  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

transacted  primly  and  in  silence,  and  if  any  were  divulged 
they  were  not  sufficiently  attested  to  command  implicit  cre- 
dence. For  everything,  it  was  suspected,  was  said  and  done  in 
accordance  with  the  views  of  the  men  in  power.  From  hence- 
forth we  find  many  things  commonly  stated  which  never  oc- 
curred, while  others  which  really  took  place  are  not  mentioned 
at  all ;  and  almost  every  incident  is  distorted  from  the  truth 
of  facts.  Besides,  the  vastness  of  the  empire  itself,  and  the 
multitude  of  occurrences,  makes  it  doubly  difficult  to  relate 
all  things  accurately.  For  events  occurred  in  Home,  in  the 
provinces,  and  on  the  frontiers,  of  which  none  but  the  actors 
themselves  could  ascertain  the  real  circumstances,  while  the 
people  generally  knew  not  that  they  occurred  at  all.  Hence- 
forth therefore  I  propose  to  relate  affairs  as  far  as  I  think 
requisite,  in  accordance  with  the  narrations  of  others,  whether 
they  be  true  or  false,  only  occasionally  introducing  conjec- 
tures of  my  own,  where  lam  induced  to  dissent  from  the  ordi- 
nary account  by  some  special  information" 1  Dion,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  possessed  of  all  our  authorities,  of  Pliny  and 
Seneca,  of  Suetonius  and  Tacitus,  as  well  as  of  many  others ; 
and  though,  as  a  Greek  himself,  he  applied  probably,  for  the 
most  part,  to  the  Greeks  for  instruction,  he  cannot  have  been 
unaware  of  the  pretensions  of  Tacitus  especially  to  industry 
and  impartiality,  and  of  the  character  of  a  consummate  his- 
torian which  that  writer  bore  among  his  own  countrymen  ac- 
cordingly. When  this  illustrious  Roman  remarks,  at  the  out- 
set of  his  Annals,  that  men  of  excellent  talents  were  not 
wanting  to  relate  the  times  of  Augustus,  till  deterred  by  the 
increasing  necessity  of  adulation,  but  that  the  histories  of 
later  principates  were  falsified  either  by  fear  during  the  life- 
time of  the  princes  themselves,  or  by  hatred  after  their  death, 
we  may  question  whether  Dion  considered  even  Tacitus  so 
free  both  from  anger  and  affection  as  he  confidently  asserts." 

1  Dion,  liii.  19. 

2  Tacitus,  Annal.  i.  1. :  "  Temporibus  August!  dicendis  non  defuere  decora 
ingenia,  donee  gliscente  adulatione  deterrereutur.     Tiberii  Caiique  et  Claudii 
ac  Neronis  res,  florentibus  ipsis,  ob  metum  falsae  ;  postquam  occiderant,  recen- 
tibus  odiis  composite  sunt.     Inde  consilium  mihi,  pauca  de  Augusto  et  ex- 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  59 

To  explain  here  my  own  view  of  the  worth  of  Tacitus  as  an 
historian,  far  the  most  important  undoubtedly  of  all  our  au- 
thorities on  the  subject  before  us,  would  be  to  anticipate  the 
history  itself :  the  judgment  I  have  formed  of  him  will  be 
explained,  and  I  hope  justified,  as  I  proceed  in  the  arduous 
task  of  comparing  him  with  himself  and  with  others ;  but  the 
reader  will  not  be  in  a  position  fully  to  appreciate  it  till  he 
has  studied  the  reign  of  Trajan  as  well  as  those  of  Tiberius 
and  Nero. 

trema  tradere,  mox  Tiberii  principatum  et  cetera ;  sine  ira  et  studio,  quorum 
caussas  procul  habeo."  I  cannot  pause  to  give  an  account  here  of  the  various 
authorities  for  our  history,  but  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  refer  the  reader 
to  the  well-written  criticisms  in  Dr.  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Classical  Biography. 
Egger's  Historiens  cTAuguste  is  also  a  valuable  work  for  appreciating  the 
sources  of  imperial  history. 


60  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 


CHAPTER  XXXIY. 

THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   THE    PROTINCES   BY   AUGUSTUS. — 1.    SPAIN  :     FINAL    PA- 
CIFICATION   OF    THE    MOUNTAIN    TRIBES. 2.    GAUL  :     TRIBUTE    PROMISED    BT 

THE  BRITONS  ;    REDUCTION  OF   THE  ALPINE  TRIBES. 3.    M,£SIA  AND   THRACE. 

4.    KINGDOM    OF   MAURETANIA. 5.    PROTINCE    OF  AFRICA. 6.    THE    CYRE- 

NAICA.  —  7.     EGYPT  :     EXPEDITION    OF    JELIUS    CALLUS    INTO    ARABIA.  —  8. 

EGYPT  :     REPULSE    OF    THE    ETHIOPIANS. 9.   ASIA   MINOR  :    BITHYNIA,    ASIA, 

AND  THE    DEPENDENT  KINGDOMS. 10.    SYRIA  AND  PALESTINE  :    PARTHIA  AND 

ARMENIA.  —  11.    ACHAIA.  —  12.    ILLYRICUM. 13.    ITALY,    SARDINIA,    AND 

CORSICA. 


H 


1ARASSED  by  a  century  of  civil  dissensions,  and  by 
twenty  years  of  civil  war,  during  which  even  the  tradi- 
tions of  their  aggressive  policy  had  been  almost 


north  ofm  of  Antonius  as  a  pledge  of  universal  tranquillity. 
The  solemn  ceremony  with  which  their  victorious 
hero  had  closed  the  gates  of  Janus  had  invested  him  with  ex- 
traordinary popularity ;  when  he  proclaimed  the  establishment 
of  peace  throughout  the  world,  the  citizens  accepted  the  an- 
nouncement joyfully,  without  minutely  inquiring  into  its  cor- 
rectness. They  were  satisfied  perhaps  with  remarking  that 
the  conflict  their  legions  still  continued  to  maintain  with  the 
unsubdued  hordes  of  a  few  obscure  districts,  whether  within 
or  beyond  their  frontiers,  could  not  fairly  be  classed  under  the 
title  of  legitimate  warfare.  In  the  north  of  Spain  the  Canta- 
brians,  the  Vaccaei,  and  the  Asturians  were  still,  as  they  had 
ever  been,  in  arms.  These  savage  tribes,  protected  by  the 
inaccessible  character  of  their  country  as  much  as  by  their 
bravery,  had  never  yet  been  brought  under  the  provincial 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 


Cl 


yoke.  The  capture  and  sack  of  the  Iberian  cities,  three  hun- 
dred of  which,  it  is  asserted,  had  been  stormed  by  an  ancient 
imperator,  had  had  little  effect  in  coercing  the  liberties  of  a 
people  whose  fortresses  were  mountains,  and  whose  resources 
were  buried  in  the  depths  of  caves  and  forests.  The  moun- 
tains indeed  of  Spain,  especially  of  its  northern  regions, 
abounded  in  gold :  the  ancient  battlefield  of  the  Romans  and 
Carthaginians  was  reputed  to  possess  the  greatest  natural 
riches  of  any  country  of  the  world.  It  had  often  pretended 
to  submit  to  the  proconsuls  of  the  republic,  and  had  promised 
tribute :  the  Iberians  had  willingly  taken  service  by  the  side 
of  the  Roman  armies ;  but  when  they  found  themselves  seized 
by  their  new  masters  and  compelled  to  toil  for  them  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  they  revolted  again  and  again  under  a 
yoke  which  imposed  upon  them  not  subjection  only,  but  per- 
sonal servitude.1  The  republic  had  controlled  them  with 
large  forces  and  a  complete  civil  organization ;  but  when  the 
theatre  of  civil  war  was  transferred  from  the  west  to  the  east, 
and  a  portion  of  this  pressure  was  withdrawn,  the  natives  of 
the  wildest  districts  had  renewed  with  ardour  their  implaca- 
ble hostilities.  The  triumvirs,  in  the  midst  of  their  common 
dangers  and  mutual  jealousies,  had  commissioned  their  ablest 
lieutenants  to  lead  large  armies  against  them.  The  real  or 
pretended  victories  successively  gained  over  them  had  been 
thought  not  unworthy  of  the  highest  military  rewards.  Ca3- 
sar  had  allowed  his  legates,  Fabius  and  Pedius,  to  triumph 
over  Spain  in  the  year  709.  Domitius  Calvinus  gained  a 
similar  distinction  in  718,  Norbanus  Flaccus  in  720,  Marcius 

1  The  wealth  especially  of  the  region  called  Turdetania  in  the  south  of 
Spain,  not  in  gold  only  but  other  precious  metals,  which  are  not  commonly 
found  near  together, — not  only  in  mineral  but  in  yegetable  riches,  which  are 
still  more  rarely  combined  in  the  same  locality, — excites  the  warmest  admira- 
tion of  Strabo,  iii.  2.  p.  146.  Lucan,  in  his  account  of  Caesar's  campaign  on 
the  Sicoris,  introduces  an  illustration  from  the  working  of  gold  mines  (iv. 

298.): 

"  Non  se  tarn  penitus,  tarn  longe  luce  relicta, 

Merserit  Assyrii  scrutator  pallidus  auri." 

For  Assyrii,  Oudendorp  would  read  Asturii,  an  emendation  in  which  I  fully 
concur. 


(52  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Philippus  and  Appius  Claudius  two  years  later.  Neverthe- 
less, after  so  many  overthrows,  the  Iberians  were  still  in  arms, 
and  in  the  very  year  which  witnessed  the  general  pacification 
of  Augustus,  his  officers,  Statilius  Taurus  and  Nonius  Gallus, 
were  still  contending  against  them.1 

In  the  year  727,  the  emperor  undertook  to  bring  the  strug- 
gle to  a  close  in  person.    On  quitting  Rome,  indeed,  he  had 
allowed  it  to  be  understood  that  he  was  going  to 

Augustus  . 

quits  Rome  to    complete  the  conquest  of  Britain,  which  his  illus- 

D'icifv  tliii 

province  in  trious  father  had  twice  commenced  and  twice 
?eIA°°.'  727.  prematurely  suspended.  The  barbarians  had  long 
since  neglected  to  transmit  the  tribute  imposed 
upon  them.  Arts  and  commerce  were  increasing  among  them, 
and  they  were  proud  of  the  rising  importance  of  their  ports 
and  cities.  The  announcement  that  the  emperor  meditated 
such  an  expedition  might  serve  to  raise  some  enthusiasm 
among  the  citizens,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  he  ever  really  in- 
tended to  engage  in  so  remote  and  hazardous  an  enterprise 
while  he  was  conscious  what  a  mass  of  occupation  lay  before 
him  nearer  home.8  Already,  however,  the  great  northern  road 
of  the  consul  Flaminius  had  been  repaired  by  his  orders  to 
expedite  the  march  of  his  legions  into  Gaul.s  After  crossing 
the  Rubicon  and  traversing  the  Cisalpine  province,  he  found 

1  Fischer's  Zeittafeln.  The  Spanish  era  dates  from  38  B.  c.  (A.  TT.  716),  and 
is  supposed  to  mark  some  important  epoch  in  the  organization  of  the  province 
by  the  Romans.  It  may  coincide  with  the  campaign  of  Calvinus,  which  is 
only  known  to  us  from  a  notice  hi  the  Fasti  Triumphales.  The  word  is  derived 
by  Isidorus  from  aes,  sera,  (de  Rer.  Nat.  6.):  "jJEra  quoque  Cscsaris  Augusti 
tempore  posita  est.  Dicta  autem  est  aera,  ex  quo  orbis  ses  reddere  professus 
est  populo  Romano."  This  may  refer  to  a  local  census,  but  the  writer  con- 
founds it  apparently  with  the  general  census  of  the  empire  alluded  to  in  St. 
Luke's  Gospel.  See  Egger,  Historiens  d'Auguste,  p.  46.  The  Spanish  era  was 
preserved  in  Aragon  till  1358,  in  Castile  till  1383,  and  in  Portugal  till  1416. 
See  Mem.  Soc,  Antiq.  de  France,  v.  28.  in  an  essay  upon  the  site  of  Emporia?. 

4  Dion,  liii.  22.  25.  The  ode  of  Horace  (5.  35.),  in  which  he  prays  "  Serves 
iturum  Caesarem  in  ultimos  orbis  Britannos,"  is  referred  to  the  year  727. 

8  The  repair  of  this  road  was  commemorated  by  an  arch  at  either  end,  at 
the  gates  of  Rome  and  of  Ariminum.  (Dion,  liii.  22.)  The  last  of  these  is 
still  extant,  as  is  also  the  bridge  thrown  by  Augustus  over  the  Anminus,  at 
the  exit  from  the  town  on  the  north. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  53 

his  progress  impeded  by  the  audacious  attacks  of  the  Alpine 
mountaineers.  Leaving  Terentius  Varro  to  chastise  these 
marauders,  he  continued  his  route  to  Narbo,  where  envoys 
from  Britain  hastened,  it  was  said,  into  his  presence,  with 
such  assurances  of  respect  and  submission  as  might  allow  him 
to  abandon  without  dishonour  the  intention  he  had  avowed. 
At  Narbo  he  held  a  conventus,  or  general  meeting  of  the 
representatives  of  the  Gaulish  states,  those  of  the  south  at 
least,  and  commenced  his  elaborate  organization  of  the  great 
province  beyond  the  Rhone.1  But  while  thus  engaged,  the 
pertinacious  insubordination  of  the  tribes  of  northern  Spain 
demanded  his  presence  in  the  camp.  Augustus  had  already 
devoted  himself  to  the  service  of  the  commonwealth  on  fields 
where  little  glory  was  to  be  obtained,  and  where  the  perils 
and  fatigues  of  warfare  might  seem  scarcely  compensated  by 
the  dispersion  of  a  few  barbarian  hordes.  Nor  could  he 
expect  to  emulate  in  the  mountains  of  Asturia  the  exploits 
of  his  father  on  the  plains  of  Gaul,  or  of  Pompeius  among  the 
wealthy  cities  of  the  eastern  world.  The  campaign  he  now 
meditated  was  obscure ;  yet  he  knew  that  solid  advantages 
were  to  be  gained  from  victory  in  the  last  stronghold  of  pro- 
vincial independence,  and  besides,  his  title  of  imperator  re- 
quired to  be  justified  by  occasional  service  in  the  field.  Gaul 
and  Blyricum,  Britain  and  Spain,  had  all  furnished  the  first 
Caesar  with  imperatorial  laurels,  and  Augustus  thus  turned 
his  arms  from  the  one  to  the  other  to  emulate  the  career  of 
his  great  predecessor. 

Accordingly,  entering  Spain  from  the  Pyrenees  in  the 
autumn  of  727,  he  advanced  into  the  heart  of  the  disturbed 
districts,  and  pitched  his  camp  at  Segisama,  near  Military  opera- 
the  head-waters  of  the  Pisuerga,  while  a  naval  "Zof  AU^" 
squadron  from  the  Garonne  or  Adour  watched  the  tu8- 
coast  and  harassed  the  enemy  in  the  rear."  As  long,  how- 
ever, as  he  kept  his  troops  together  in  the  centre  of  the  ene- 
my's position,  the  barbarians  abstained  from  meeting  him  in 
battle,  and  confined  themselves  to  the  harassing  warfare  for 
1  Dion,  I.  c.  a  Oros.  vi.  21. ;  Flor.  iv.  12. 


64  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

which  their  country  has  been  ever  famous.1  The  emperor's 
flatterers  might  assure  him  that  the  foe  was  terrified  by  his 
presence,  and  would  refuse  to  be  drawn  from  their  fastnesses 
as  long  as  he  remained  before  them.  At  the  same  time  his 
fatigues,  and  perhaps  his  mortification  at  the  repeated  failure 
of  his  military  enterprises,  prostrated  his  feeble  frame  with 
sickness  of  unusual  severity.  He  was  soon  compelled  to  quit 
the  scene  of  operations,  and  repair  to  Tarraco,  the  head-quar- 
ters of  the  province  to  which  it  gave  its  name.2  While  Au- 
gustus lay  stretched  upon  his  couch  the  barbarians  ventured 
to  issue  from  their  fastnesses,  and  assailed  the  legions.  The 
Cantabrians  were  overthrown  in  a  great  battle  at  Vellica, 
among  the  sources  of  the  Ebro,  and  were  driven  from  thence, 
step  by  step,  to  the  recesses  of  the  Mons  Vinnius,  a  lofty  and 
sterile  tract  in  the  north  of  Gallicia,  the  summits  of  which 
rise  more  than  nine  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  Secure  as 
they  deemed  themselves,  in  these  inaccessible  strongholds,  the 
mountaineers  asserted  that  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  should 
overflow  these  eminences  sooner  than  the  arms  of  the  repub- 
lic succeed  in  scaling  them. 

Nevertheless  the  skill  and  perseverance  of  the  Romans 
were  at  last  triumphant,  and  Spain,  it  was  declared,  was  once 
Reduction  of  more  pacified.  At  the  last  moment,  when  the 
tri^am?111  success  of  his  lieutenants  had  become  fully  as- 
mSulrycoio^  sure^,  Augustus  was  able  to  rise  from  his  bed, 
nios-  and  hasten  to  the  scene  of  their  exploits,  where 

he  devoted  himself  in  person  to  the  task  of  consolidating 
their  conquests.  The  natives  were  required  to  descend  from 

1  The  "unchangeable  character  of  Spanish  warfare "  is  marked  by  a  single 
word  in  Virgil :  "  Aut  impacatos  a  tergo  horrebis  Ibcros."  How  important 
this  contest  was  felt  to  be  even  at  Rome  is  attested  by  the  frequent  allusiona 
to  it  in  Horace.  See  Od.  ii.  6. 11.,  iii.  8.,  iv.  14.;  Epist.  i.  12.  26.  The  foe 
is  mentioned  with  respect  even  as  late  as  the  time  of  Lucan,  Phars.  vi.  258. : 
"  Si  tibi  durus  Iber,  aut  si  tibi  terga  dedisset 

Cantaber  exiguis,  aut  longis  Teutonus  armis." 

*  We  learn  from  Martial,  x.  104.,  that  the  most  direct  communication  by 
sea  between  Italy  and  Spain  was  from  Rome  to  Tarraco. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  (55 

their  mountains,  and  drafted  into  the  cities  in  the  plains,  or 
quartered,  as  clients  of  the  conquering  race,  within  the  lines 
which  he  now  caused  to  be  traced  for  the  establishment  of 
military  colonies.  Large  numbers  were  sold  into  captivity ; 
the  chiefs  were  suffered  to  redeem  their  freedom  by  the  sur- 
render of  hostages.  The  veterans  of  the  legions  were  en- 
dowed with  confiscated  lands,  and  settled  in  fortified  posts, 
of  which  Csesar-Augusta,  the  modern  Saragossa,  was  chosen, 
we  are  told,  for  its  beautiful  situation,  more  probably  from 
its  convenience  as  a  centre  of  communication  between  Tar- 
raco  and  Gallacia,  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Tagus.  Bracara  Au- 
gusta, with  Asturica  Augusta  and  Lucus  Augusti,  served  to 
bridle  the  rebellious  people  of  the  north.1  Emerita  Augusta, 
which  became  at  a  later  period  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  Spain 
under  the  Romans,  was  founded  in  a  more  favoured  region, 
and  to  this  perhaps  it  owed  its  eminent  splendour  and  pros- 
perity. The  remains  of  a  magnificent  bridge  over  the  Guadi- 
ana,  and  of  two  noble  aqueducts,  still  evince  the  consideration 
it  attained  under  the  peaceful  sway  of  the  emperors. 

The  thirtieth  and  last  triumph  over  the  warlike  nations 
of  Iberia  was  celebrated  in  728  by  S.  Apuleius,  under  whose 
conduct,  as  proconsul,  the  final  successes  had  proionged  resi- 
been  gained  before  the  arrival  of  the  emperor  in  gus 
person.  Augustus  was  already  satiated  with  these  BP 
distinctions,  and  demanded  no  military  honours  himself  for 
the  victories  of  his  lieutenants.  His  flatterers  recorded  with 
exultation  how  embassies  from  the  verge  of  the  extreme  East 
now  reached  him  on  the  western  margin  of  his  empire^  The 
envoys,  we  are  assured,  of  the  Indians  and  Scythians,  famous 
names  of  unknown  nations,  had  traversed  the  whole  breadth 
of  the  globe  in  quest  of  the  mighty  master,  and  had  found 

1  Bracara  is  the  modern  Braga  in  the  north  of  Portugal,  Asturica  is  As- 
torgain  Leon,  and  Lucus  may  be  traced  in  Lugo  among  the  highlands  of  Gal- 
licia ;  Emerita  is  Merida  in  Estremadura.  There  was  also  a  colony,  Pax  Julia, 
and  a  Pax  Augusta,  probably  the  same  place,  called  also  Colonia  Pacensis, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  Beja.  Ukert,  Geogr.  Gr.  und  Ram.  ii.  388.  Ebora 
(Evora)  received  the  name  of  Liberalitas  Julia,  and  Gades  (Cadiz)  that  of 
Augusta  Julia. 

VOL.  IT. — 5 


QQ  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

him  at  length  at  the  spot  where  they  could  advance  no  farther. 
The  Romans  were  reminded  that  in  the  same  manner  the  na- 
tions of  Gaul  and  Spain  had  sent  ambassadors  to  the  court  of 
Alexander  at  Babylon,  to  accept  peace  at  the  hands  of  the  great- 
est of  ancient  conquerors.1  Augustus  prolonged  his  residence 
A.  r.  729.  in  the  country  till  729,  occupying  himself  with  the 
organization  of  the  three  provinces,  and  amusing 
himself,  during  the  tedious  intervals  of  returning  illness,  with 
familiar  correspondence  with  his  friends  in  Rome.  At  this  pe- 
riod the  great  epic  of  Vii'gil  was  promised  to  the  world,  and  a 
brother  poet  had  predicted,  in  verses  current  among  the  circles 
of  fashion  in  the  capital,  that  it  would  eclipse  with  its  splendour 
all  Roman  and  all  Grecian  fame.  Something  finer  than  the 
Iliad,  exclaimed  Propertius,  is  about  to  see  the  light.  The 
exploits  of  Caesar  and  the  triumphs  of  Actium  were  to  be  en- 
twined with  the  legend  of  ^Eneas  and  his  Trojan  fleet.  Au- 
gustus, to  whom  these  anticipations  were  duly  reported,  urged 
the  poet  with  importunate  letters  to  send  him  a  specimen  of  the 
work,  which  the  modest  author  continued  firmly  to  decline." 
In  the  year  729  Augustus  finally  quitted  the  peninsula.  It 

1  Orosius,  vi  21. :  "  Interea  Caesarem  apud  Tarragonam  citerioris  Hispa- 
niae  urbem  legati  Indorum  et  Scytharum,  toto  orbe  transmisso,  tandem  ibi  in- 
venerunt,  ultra  quod  jam  quaerere  non  possent ;  refuderuntque  in  Cassarem 
Alexandri  Magni  gloriam :  quern  sicut  Hispanorum  Gallorumque  legatio  in 
medio  Oriente  apud  Babylonem  contemplatione  pacis  adiit,  ita  hunc  apud  His- 
paniam  in  Occidentis  ultimo  supplex  cum  gentilitio  munere  Eous  Indus  et 
Scytha  Boreus  oravit." 

We  may  suspect,  however,  the  reality  of  this  remarkable  incident,  men- 
tioned only  by  so  late  a  writer  as  Orosius,  himself  a  Spaniard.  At  a  later 
period  a  similar  embassy  is  said  to  have  reached  Augustus  in  the  more  cen- 
tral locality  of  Samos. 

-  Propert.  it  34.  65. : 

"  Cedite  Romani  scriptores,  cedite  Graii, 

Nescio  quid  majus  nascitur  Iliade." 

Donatus  in  Vit.  Virgil.  12.  45. :  "  Augustus  vero  cum  turn  forte  expeditione 
Cantabrica  abesset,  et  supplicibus  atque  minacibus  per  jocum  literis  efflagitaret, 
ut  sibi  de  J2neide,  ut  ipsius  verba  sunt,  vel  prima  carminis  hypographa,  vel 
quodlibet  colon  mitteret,  negavit  se  facturum  Yirgilius ;  cui  tamen  non  multo 
post,  perfecta  demum  materia,  tres  omnino  libros  recitavit,  secundum  videlicet, 
quartum  et  sextum."  Comp.  Macrob.  Saturn,  i.  24. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  Qf 

was  not  long,  however,  before  fresh  disturbances  broke  out. 
In  the  following  year  Agrippa  was  employed  to  Renewed  out- 
suppress  them.    In  732  the  oppression  of  Carisius,  flnT 
propraetor  of  the  northern  province,  drove  the  g'pan^ard 
Asturians  to   another  outbreak,  in  which  they  Ag»PPa- 
were  presently  joined  by  the  gallant  Cantabrians.      Three 
Roman  armies  were  attacked  simultaneously,  and  only  saved, 
as  was  affirmed,  by  the  treachery  among  the  assailants  them- 
selves.    Carisius  reduced  the  stronghold  of  Lan-      A  r  731> 
cia,  under  the  mountains  of  Asturia,  in  the  north      B- c- 22- 
of  Leon,  and  displayed  unusual  moderation  in  saving  it  from 
conflagration,  in  order  that  it  might  remain  a  monument  of 
his  victory.    Furnius  drove  the  remnant  of  the  insurgents  into 
the  Mons  Medullius,  between  the  Minho  and  Douro,  where  he 
surrounded  them  with  a  circumvallation,  fifteen  miles  in  ex- 
tent, and  compelled  them  at  last  to  surrender,  but  not  until 
great  numbers  had  imitated  the  devotion  of  the  Numantians 
and  Saguntines,  and  destroyed  themselves  with  fire,  poison, 
and  the  sword.1     Nevertheless  the  last  sparks  of  the  indomi- 
table spirit  of  independence  were  not  extinguished  till  735, 
when  Agrippa  was  once  more  engaged  in  the      A  ^  735 
work.     Some  of  the  Cantabrian  captives  in  Rome      B- c>  19- 
had  contrived  to  assassinate  their  masters  and  escape  into 
their   own   country,  where   they  excited  their   compatriots 
to  a  fresh  revolt  by  the  recital  of  their  sufferings  and  re- 
venge.    So   desperate  was  their  last  effort  of  resistance,  so 
well  had  they  profited  by  their  experience  of  Roman  tactics, 
that  the  veterans  had  learnt  to  fear  them  in  turn,  and  were 
with  difficulty  and  only  by  severe  examples,  brought  into  the 
field  against  them.      Among  other  punishments  the  legion 
called  Augusta  was  forbidden  to  use  the  imperial  title.    But 

1  Dion,  liv.  5. ;  Hor.  Od.  iv.  12.  This  C.  Furnius  was  not  less  skilful  as  a 
courtier  than  as  a  soldier.  See  the  anecdote  in  Seneca,  De  Benef.  ii.  25. : 
"  Nullo  magis  Caesarem  Augustum  demeruit,  et  ad  alia  impetranda  facilem  sibi 
reddidit  Furnius,  quam  quod,  cum  patri  Antonianas  partes  secuto  veniam  impe- 
trasset,  dixit,  Hanc  unam,  Caesar,  habeo  injuriam  tuam ;  effecisti  ut  viverem 
et  morerer  ingratus."  He  became  consul  in  737. 


(}8  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  conquest  was  now  at  last  completed,  and  the  severe  meas- 
ures enjoined  by  Augustus  were  carried  out  with  unflinching 
perseverance  by  his  trusty  coadjutor.  Agrippa  was  conscious, 
however,  that  his  services  had  reached  the  limit  beyond  which 
they  would  be  invidious  in  a  subject,  and  abstained  from  ob- 
truding them  on  the  emperor's  notice  by  demanding  a  tri- 
umph. \Vith  this  campaign  the  three  provinces  were  com- 
pletely brought  under  the  yoke.1  From  this  period  the  arts 
of  peace  and  civilization  were  allowed  to  germinate  without 
interruption.  The  fertile  genius  of  the  Iberian  population 
profited  to  the  utmost  by  the  advantages  of  its  position,  se- 
cure from  the  inroads  of  war,  and  opportune  for  peaceful 
communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  cities  of  the 
great  western  peninsula  became  famous  for  luxury  and  letters, 
and  the  schools  of  Bastica  furnished  a  longer  list  of  historians, 
poets,  and  philosophers,  than  any  province  of  the  empire  in 
which  the  imperial  language  was  spoken.  Throughout  the 
southern  part  of  the  country  the  nations  were  completely  Ro- 
manized, so  as  to  forget  their  vernacular  tongue.1  Bsetica 
was  administered  by  the  senate  without  any  military  force, 
while  the  Tarraconensis  and  Lusitania,  which  were  placed 
tinder  the  care  of  the  emperor,  required  the  presence  of  his 
legates  only  as  a  protection  against  their  own  intractable 
mountaineers.  Commerce,  agriculture,  and  manufactures 
flourished ;  the  demand  of  Italy  for  grain  gave  an  impulse  to 
industry,  and  fertilized  the  Iberian  soil  with  a  continual 
stream  of  wealth  ;  the  spirit  of  disaffection  to  Rome  and  the 
Caesarean  house  yielded  to  the  sense  of  increasing  comfort  and 
abundance  ;  and  the  ease  and  contentment  of  the  mass  of  the 
population  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  from  hence- 
forth Spam  disappears  for  four  centuries  from  the  page  of 
military  history.3 

1  Liv.  xxTii.  12.:  "  Hispania  prima  Romania  inita  provinciarum,  quae  qui- 
dem  continentis  sunt,  postrema  omnium,  nostra  demum  state,  ductu  auspicio- 
que  August!  Caesaris  perdomita  est." 

*  Strabo,  iii.  2.  p.  151.  :  ol  -xtpl  rov  Bairw  Tt\fius  (Is  r6v  'Pu,ualuv  fitra- 

*  Velleius  remarks  (ii.  90.),   "  Has  provincias  ad  earn  pacem  perduxit 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  69 

Thus  removed  from  the  ordinary  sphere  of  historical  nar- 
rative, Spain  presents  us  with  scanty  materials  for  describing 
her  political  organization,  and  that  organization  political  organ- 
itself  becomes  of  comparatively  little  interest  or  1^^°?™! 
importance.  It  will  be  enough  to  remark,  that  the  inces- 
three  provinces  into  which  the  country  was  divided  in  the 
time  of  Ca3sar  continued  under  the  same  names  and  with 
nearly  the  same  boundaries.  The  military  posts  by  which  it 
was  occupied  were  confined  for  the  most  part  to  the  Asturian 
mountains.  The  great  division  of  the  Tarraconensis  contained 
no  less  than  seven  conventus  or  circles,  embracing  twelve  colo- 
nies, thirteen  Roman  and  eighteen  Latin  municipia.  Three 
conventus,  nine  colonies,  and  eight  municipia,  were  enumer- 
ated in  the  smaller  district  of  Bsetica ;  while  Lusitania,  less 
populous  and  advanced,  included  three  combinations  of  states, 
five  colonies,  and  four  municipia  only.1 

But  to  the  ample  region,  divided  from  Spain  by  the  Pyre- 
nees, which  will  come  repeatedly  on  the  scene  before  us,  we 
must  devote  our  attention  more  closely,  destined  Affairs  of  Gaul. 
as  it  was  to  play  a  part  in  almost  every  domestic  ^A^™  °f 
revolution,  and  many  of  the  foreign  transactions,  v!rinand  tiiere" 
of  its  conquerors.  Ca?sar  had  left  Gaul  exhausted  Morinl- 
and  tranquil.  He  had  succeeded  in  diverting  into  his  own 
camps  the  valour  of  her  most  restless  spirits,  and  had  opened 
to  her  adventurous  chiefs  a  new  career  of  fame  and  fortune 
in  the  arena  of  Roman  politics.  During  his  brief  tenure  of 
power,  and  for  a  few  years  after,  the  tranquillity  of  the  prov- 
ince continued  to  be  maintained,  though  he  had  withdrawn 
from  it  the  strength  of  the  legions  by  which  its  submission 
had  been  originally  eifected.  The  obedience  of  the  Gauls 
was  interrupted  once  only  by  a  rising  of  the  Bellovaci ; "  and 

Caesar  Augustus,  ut  quoe  maximis  bellis  nunquam  vacaverant,  eae  etiam  latro- 
ciniis  vacarent."  Orosius,  the  Spaniard,  writing  four  centuries  later :  "  Tota 
Hispania  in  aeternam  pacem  reclinata." 

1  See  Becker  (continued  by  Marquardt)  Handbuch  derRoem.  Alterthumcr, 
iii.  1.  83.  from  Pliny  and  Strabo. 

y  Liv.  Epit.  cxiv.     The  name  of  Bratuspantium  was  changed  perhaps  on 


YO  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

this  was  speedily  put  down  by  Decimus  Brutus,  to  whom, 
after  the  reduction  of  Massilia,  Csesar  had  entrusted  the  com- 
mand. But  after  the  establishment  of  the  triumvirate,  the  as- 
pect of  affairs  was  entirely  changed.  From  that  time,  both  the 
north  and  the  south  were  harassed  by  repeated  disturbances. 
Agrippa  was  sent  by  Octavius  in  717  to  quell  a  revolt  of  the 
Aquitanians  :  no  sooner  had  he  gained  an  advantage  over  this 
people,  than  he  was  summoned  in  haste  to  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  to  check  an  irruption  of  German  hordes,  invited  thither 
by  the  Gauls  themselves.  Agrippa  was  the  first  to  adopt  the 
policy  of  establishing  these  warlike  strangers  in  settlements 
within  the  frontier,  where  their  jealousy  of  the  natives  on  the 
one  hand,  and  their  fear  of  their  own  fierce  and  needy  kins- 
men on  the  other,  might  serve  to  retain  them  in  alliance  with 
the  republic,  whose  position  and  interests  were  now  connected 
with  their  own.  This  system,  as  we  shall  see,  was  carried 
out  more  extensively  in  later  ages,  till  it  became  in  fact  one 
of  the  fixed  principles  of  the  Roman  administration.  Never- 
theless, the  pacification  effected  by  Agrippa  was  precarious 
and  incomplete.  Nine  years  later  the  conquest  of  Aquitania 
had  to  be  repeated,  and  Valerius  Messala  earned  a  triumph 
over  Gaul  on  the  banks  of  the  Adour.1  Nonius  Gallus  de- 
feated the  Treviri,  together  with  the  German  bands  they  had 
enlisted  in  their  service ;  and  C.  Carrinas  gained  a  victory 
over  the  Morini,  beyond  the  Somme,  whom  Virgil,  the  pane- 

this  occasion  by  Decimus  to  Caesaromagus ;  it  became  afterwards  Bellovaci, 
now  Beauvais. 

1  Tibull.  i.  7.  4. : 

"  Hunc  fore  Aquitanas  posset  qui  fundere  gentes, 
Quern  tremeret  forti  milite  victus  Atur." 

But  the  Aquitania  of  Messala's  campaign  is  to  be  understood  in  the  wider 
sense  it  obtained  officially  only  a  few  years  later,  as  bounded  by  the  Rhone 
and  Saone,  the  Loire  and  Pyrenees.  The  poet  continues : 

"  Non  sine  me  tibi  partus  honos :  Tarbella  Pyrene 

Testis,  et  Oceani  litora  Santonici : 
Testis  Arar,  Rhodanusque  celer,  magnusque  Garumna, 

Carnuti  et  flavi  casrula  lympha  Liger." 
Messala  triumphed  in  72Y.     See  the  Fasti  Capitolini. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  71 

gyrist  of  Augustus,  would  fain  persuade  the  Romans  to  be- 
lieve the  farthest  of  mankind.  Another  irruption  of  the  Ger- 
mans across  the  Rhine  was  chastised  in  729  by  Marcus  Vini- 
cius.1 

The  cause  of  this  disruption  of  the  bands  of  Gaulish  obe- 
dience, which  appeared  so  firmly  settled  (for  even  the  aggres- 
sion of  the  Germans  may  be  taken  as  a  symptom  Disaffection  of 
of  disaffection  within  the  province),  is  to  be  sought  caused  by' 
in  the  change  of  treatment  to  which  the  natives  ^fen^nnder  the 
were  now  apparently  subjected.  Caesar,  with  a  triumvirs. 
broad  and  liberal  policy,  besides  flattering  the  martial  spirit 
of  the  nation,  had  taken  a  still  surer  means  of  purchasing 
their  submission  by  the  slender  tribute  he  had  been  satisfied 
to  impose  upon  them.  He  required  no  more  than  a  moderate 
revenue  for  the  maintenance  of  his  army  of  picked  veterans, 
small  in  number,  and  accustomed  to  seek  its  reward  in  the 
conquests  to  which  he  continually  led  it.  Gaul  was  in  fact 
the  adopted  country  of  the  .first  Roman  emperor.  During  the 
brief  period  of  his  rule  in  Rome,  he  formed  no  general  plan 
of  taxation  for  the  empire,  and  the  region  beyond  the  Alps 
was  left  to  develope  its  natural  resources,  in  peace  and  virtual 
independence,  unchecked  by  the  extortions  of  the  Roman  col- 
lector. As  long  as  this  lenient  system  was  suffered  to  endure, 
Gaul  remained  tranquil  and  contented.  But  with  the  acces- 
sion of  the  triumvirs  to  power,  the  fiscal  demands  of  the  treas- 
ury began  to  make  themselves  felt  with  more  than  common 
severity.  The  new  rulers  were  needy ;  their  armies,  raised 
in  desperate  rivalry,  were  immense  in  number ;  their  clients 
and  adherents  reckless  and  insatiable ;  and  they  were  com- 
pelled to  frame  their  financial  system  in  accordance  with 
the  demands  importunately  urged  upon  them.  Massacre  and 
confiscation  at  home,  plunder  and  extortion  abroad;  such 
was  the  simple  policy  of  the  new  administration.  Gaul  and 
Spain,  though  not  cursed  by  the  presence  of  the  rival  chiefs 

1  Virgil,  JEn.  viii.  fin. :  "  Extremique  hominum  Morini."  Dion,  li.  20, 
21.,  liii.  29.  Comp.  Veil  ii.  104. :  "  In  Germania  .  .  .  immcnsum  exorsei-at 
bellum." 


72  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

themselves,  suffered  under  this  pressure  hardly  less  than 
Greece  and  Asia,  in  which  they  encamped  or  resided.  Hence 
the  commotions  we  have  noticed  on  either  side  of  the  Pyre- 
nees ;  hence  the  campaigns  which  violated  even  the  sacred 
peace  of  Janus  ;  hence  the  hard-won  triumphs  of  the  Octavian 
generals,  swiftly  followed  by  fresh  disturbances ;  and  hence 
the  necessity  for  the  arrival  of  Augustus  himself  to  strike  out 
in  either  province  the  lines  of  a  satisfactory  and  permanent 
settlement. 

It  was  with  such  a  settlement  in  view  that  the  emperor 
had  chosen  these  provinces  to  be  governed  among  others  di- 
Poiicy  of  An-  rectly  from  himself.  As  an  imperial  province,  the 
§rng8anfzLuoneof  whole  of  Gaul  was  placed,  like  the  Tarraconensis, 
Gaul-  under  a  purely  military  regime.  An  imperial  or 

Caesarean  legatus  commanded  the  legions  quartered  upon  it, 
enacted  its  laws,  apportioned  its  contributions,  and  adminis- 
tered justice,  under  no  other  control  than  that  of  the  impera- 
tor  himself ;  while  a  procurator,  as  the  steward  of  the  irn- 
perator's  private  property,  and  generally  a  simple  knight,  or 
merely  a  freedman  of  his  household,  collected  its  revenues  for 
the  maintenance  of  its  public  government.1  The  constitu- 
tional princeps  and  limited  imperator  in  the  city  was  trans- 
formed, in  his  relation  to  an  imperial  province,  into  an  irre- 
sponsible dictator.  The  organization  of  Gaul  by  Augustus, 
of  which  we  can  combine  the  details  with  tolerable  complete- 
ness, furnishes,  in  its  general  aspect,  a  specimen  of  the  way 
in  which  the  provinces  were  ordinarily  settled  by  victorious 
proconsuls  under  the  commonwealth.  The  civil  and  political 
reforms  which  required  such  delicate  handling,  and  so  much 

1  Under  the  republic  the  procurator  was  the  man  of  business  of  a  private 
citizen,  charged  with  the  care  of  his  property  out  of  Italy :  hence  generally 
his  client  or  freedman.  The  emperor's  procurator  took  the  place  of  the  quaes- 
tor in  the  imperial  provinces,  and  in  some  assumed  the  functions  of  the  pro- 
consul himself.  Tac.  Hist.  i.  11.:  "Duse  Mauretania?,  Rhnetia,  Xoricum, 
Thracia,  et  quae  alias  procuratoribus  cohibentur."  In  this  case  he  was  called 
procurator  vice  praesidis,  &c.  Even  in  the  senatorial  provinces  there  was  a  pro- 
curator with  independent  functions,  to  look  after  the  fiscus  or  private  revenues 
accruing  to  the  emperor.  See  Becker,  Roem.  Alter,  iii.  1.  300. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  73 

of  preparation  and  disguise,  when  they  affected  the  city, 
which,  in  fact,  could  only  be  enforced  by  the  most  powerful 
commanders  with  the  aid  of  popular  enthusiasm,  could  be 
carried  out  in  the  provinces  at  one  blow,  or  by  one  word,  at 
the  sole  will  of  the  governor  deputed  by  the  state.  The  sanc- 
tion of  the  subjects  of  the  republic  was  neither  asked  nor  ac- 
knowledged ;  all  the  proconsul  required  was  the  eventual  rati- 
fication of  his  acts  by  the  senate.  In  the  present  case,  this 
ratification  was  of  course  a  mere  matter  of  form,  if  it  was 
ever  even  formally  demanded.  Augustus,  at  the  head  of  the 
general  assembly  of  the  Gaulish  states,  propounded  his  views 
for  the  division,  the  administration,  and  the  assessment  of  the 
regions  around  him,  and  the  law  which  proceeded  from  his 
lips  was  maintained  without  appeal  by  the  terrors  of  the 
sword. 

His  attention  was  first  directed  to  the  settlement  of  the 
Narbonensis.  He  had  already  summoned  the  states  of  Gaul 
into  his  presence  at  Narbo,  before  proceeding  into 


Spain,  and  had  decreed  that  a  census  should  be  th?proTincfa0 
taken  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  Comata.1  With 
respect,  however,  to  the  Togata,  the  more  civilized  region 
called  hitherto  specially  the  Province,  we  have  seen  how 
completely  it  had  been  gained  to  the  interests  of  the  oligarchy 
under  the  sway  of  Pompeius,  and  the  prefects  appointed 
through  his  influence.  The  hostile  feeling  engendered  in  this 
quarter  against  the  popular  party  had  been  defied  by  Ca?sar, 
and  disarmed  to  a  great  extent  by  his  discretion.  Yet  the 
Massilians  had  clearly  shown  that  their  sympathies  were  still 
Pompeian,  and  after  the  reduction  of  their  city  Caesar  had 
taken  vigorous  measures  to  break  their  spirit.  Augustus  con- 
tinued, after  the  dictator's  example,  to  mingle  favours  with 
severities  in  his  treatment  of  these  dubious  allies.  His  first 

1  Liv.  Ejnt.  cxxxiv.  :  "  Cum  ille  conventum  in  Xarbone  ageret,  census  a 
tribus  Galliis  quas  Caesar  pater  vicerat  actus."  Dion,  liii.  22.  :  Kal  avruv  xal 
airoypcupas  evot-fiffaru,  KO.\  rov  f)lot>  T(]V  re  TrohiTeiav  8ie/co<ryurj<re.  It  cannot  be 
supposed  that  this  census  was  completed  during  the  short  stay  of  Augustus  in 
Gaul  in  727. 


74  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

act  was  to  dedicate  a  temple  to  the  Justice  and  Clemency  of 
his  predecessor,  as  a  pledge  of  the  system  he  was  resolved  him- 
self to  pursue.  He  proceeded  to  found  or  restore  colonies  for 
detachments  of  his  soldiers.  Arausio  received  veterans  from 
the  second  legion,  Forum  Julii  from  the  eighth,  Arelate  from 
the  sixth,  Baeterra?  from  the  seventh.1  These  foundations 
were  distinguished  by  the  full  Roman  franchise  ;  but  Augus- 
tus was  more  reserved  in  communicating  this  privilege  than 
his  bolder  predecessor,  and  Carpentorate,  Cabellio,  Aqua} 
Sextiae,  Nemausus,  with  other  places  which  were  now  allowed 
to  assume  the  denomination  of  Julian  or  Augustan,  marking, 
it  may  be  presumed,  some  close  connexion  with  the  imperator 
himself,  were  confined  to  the  Latin  rights.  Vienna,  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Allobroges,  was  already  a  colony  of  earlier  date, 
and  it  is  probable  that  no  new  proprietors  were  now  intruded 
upon  it.2  According  to  the  analogy  of  Spain  we  must  sup- 
pose that  the  wide  domain  of  the  Narbonensis  was  divided 
into  several  conventus,  the  states  of  which  met  in  their  assem- 
blies to  receive  the  commands  of  the  Roman  governor,  and 
to  apportion  among  themselves  their  shares  of  the  fiscal  bur- 
dens imposed  upon  the  whole  province.  Of  their  number, 
however,  we  are  not  informed.3  The  chastisement  which  fell 
upon  Massilia  was  the  withdrawal  from  its  supremacy  of  its 
dependents,  Antipolis  and  Agathe.  Of  these,  the  former, 
though  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Var,  was  declared  to  belong 
to  the  Cisalpine  province,  while  the  latter  obtained  the  title 
and  immunities  of  a  Roman  city.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, Nicaea,  which  lay  some  miles  to  the  left  of  the  frontier 
stream,  was  suffered  to  remain  a  client  of  Massilia,  and  a  city 


1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  Hi.  4.  Valentia  and  other  towns  are  designated  as  colo- 
nies by  Ptolemy,  Geogr.  ii.  5.  10.  ;  but  these,  we  may  suppose  from  the 
silence  of  Pliny,  are  of  later  date. 

3  Plin.  H.  N.  1.  c.  According  to  Tacitus,  Hist.  i.  65.,  the  colonists  of 
Lugdunum  (see  below)  regarded  the  Viennese  as  less  genuine  Romans  than 
themselves.  The  soil  of  the  Allobroges  may  have  absorbed  the  blood  of  the 
older  foundation. 

3  Becker's  Roem.  Alterthumer,  iii.  1.  89. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  75 

of  the  Transalpine  province.1  The  port  and  arsenals  of  Forum 
Julii  were  completed  by  Augustus,  and  this  colony,  called 
also  Classica,  as  the  station  of  a  great  naval  armament,  and 
Pacensis,  as  a  surety  for  the  peace  of  the  empire,  became  a 
formidable  rival  to  the  ancient  emporium  of  the  Phoceans. 

But  beyond  the  Narbonensis  the  soil  of  Gaul  extended 
many  hundreds  of  miles  in  various  directions,  and  compre- 
hended more  than  one  federation  of  tribes,  differ-  The  provincia 
ing  in  manners  and  language.  To  forge  into  one  Lugaunensi8- 
mass  the  divers  elements  of  which  this  region  was  composed, 
required  great  administrative  vigour,  and  the  seat  of  its  gov- 
ernment could  not  fail  to  become  the  centre  and  capital  of 
the  whole  province.  During  the  wars  of  Cassar  and  Pom- 
peius,  dissensions  in  Vienna  had  caused  the  expulsion  of  a 
portion  of  its  inhabitants,  originally  Roman  colonists ;  and 
the  outcasts  had  betaken  themselves  to  the  eminence  which 
overlooks  the  meeting  of  the  Rhone  and  Saone,  where,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  proconsul  Plancus,  they  had  founded  Lug- 
dunum,  the  city  on  the  MIL1  This  place,  admirably  situated 
both  for  commerce  and  defence,  Augustus  had  garrisoned 
with  a  band  of  veterans,  and  had  endowed  it  with  a  small 
domain  extorted  from  the  Segusians  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Saone,  to  make  it  independent  of  the  surrounding  tribes,  the 
jEdui,  the  Sequani,  and  the  Allobroges.3  Standing  at  the  ex- 
treme point  or  apex  of  the  ancient  province,  Lugdunum 
seemed  to  command  a  view  of  the  new  conquests  of  the  re- 
public in  every  direction.4  From  this  spot,  as  the  base  of  his 

1  Strabo,  iv.  1.  p.  184.    Plin.  H.  N.  iii.  5. :  "  Agatha  quondam  Massilien- 
sium." 

2  Dion,  xlvi.  50.     The  site  of  the  Roman  Lugdunum  is  on  the  hill  of 
Fourvieres,  supposed  to  be  Forum  Vetus,  to  the  north  of  the  level  space  be- 
tween the  rivers,  probably  a  recent  accretion  from  them,  now  occupied  by  the 
chief  part  of  the  modern  Lyons.     Strabo,  iv.  3.  p.  192. :    ^Kiriff^fvov  virb 
\6<bto,  on  a  slope  beneath  the  brow  of  the  hill,  unless  we  should  read  M. 

*  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  iv.  32. :  "  Segusiani  liberi  in  quorum  agro  colonia  Lug- 
dunum." For  their  position,  however,  west  of  both  rivers,  see  Strabo,  iv.  I.  c. 
(whose  account  is  to  be  read  with  caution,  from  his  mistaking  the  Loire  for  the 
Doubs).  Ptol.  Geogr.  ii.  8.  Comp.  Cic.  pro  Quinct.  25,  26. 

4  "  Qui  locus  est  exordium  Galliarum."    Amm.  Marcel,  xv.  11.    Strabo, 


76  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

operations,  Augustus  drew  two  geographical  lines,  radiating, 
the  one  to  the  Atlantic,  the  other  to  the  British  Channel. 
The  first  took  nearly  the  course  of  the  Loire,  except  where  it 
swept  southward  to  exclude  the  territory  of  the  Turones,  and 
mark  off  the  province  of  Aquitania  from  the  rest  of  Gaul ; ' 
the  other  adopted  first  the  channel  of  the  Saone,  then  struck 
westward  between  the  Seine  and  Marne,  and  reached  the  sea 
nearly  at  the  mouth  of  the  Somme.  Beyond  this  second  line 
lay  the  whole  region  of  Belgic  Gaul,  together  with  the  realms 
of  the  Sequani  and  Lingones,  which  were  now  included  within 
that  division.  The  shapeless  and  comparatively  narrow  strip 
comprehended  between  these  two  lines,  and  extended  to  em- 
brace the  distant  headland  of  Armorica,  received  its  name  of 
Lugdunensis  from  the  new  city  which  constituted  its  capital ; 
but  Lugdunum  was  destined,  from  the  convenience  of  its 
situation,  to  become  the  political  and  commercial  centre  of  the 
whole  of  Gaul.  From  hence  the  great  roads  of  the  province 
were  directed  to  the  extremities  of  the  land ;  and  from  this 
starting-point,  as  from  the  walls  of  the  imperial  metropolis, 
the  distances  along  each  line  were  regularly  measured.*  Here 
was  established  the  Gaulish  mint,  and  here  was  the  residence 
of  the  emperor  himself,  when  he  chose  to  visit  the  province 
in  person,  or  of  the  governor  to  whom  he  deputed  its  admin- 
istration. 

rather  differently,  iv.  6.  p.  208. :  TO  8e  AotySowov  eV  platf  TTJJ  x^Pas  ^T\V, 
Siffirfp  aKp6iro\Ls,  5jck  re  T&S  ffvfi&o\as  riav  vorafj.uf,  Kal  8ii  T&  tyyvs  flvai  irciffi 
iroTs  fj.fpecri. 

1  Pliny  asserts  in  one  place  that  the  Garonne  was  still  the  northern  limit 
of  Aquitania,  but  shortly  afterwards  includes  in  that  district  several  tribes 
lying  between  the  Garonne  and  the  Loire.     Comp.  Hist.  Nat.  iv.  31.  83.     Mela 
also  retains  the  pre- Augustan  division  (ii.  2.) ;  but  Strabo  is  decisive  on  the 
Other  side  :  irpoGt6f\KS  tie  T«'cr<rapa  Kal  8«»ca  tdvj)  T&V  utra^v  rov  Tapovva.  /col  TOV 
Afyupo?  vordfiov  vf/j.ofj.fvui'.  iv.  1.  p.  177.     See  also  Ptolemy,  Geogr.  ii.  7. 

2  If  we  may  take  the  statement  of  Ammianus  in  the  fifth  century,  "exinde 
lion  millenis  passibussed  leugis  (1500  pp.  Ducange  in  voc.)  metiuntur  "  (Amm. 
/.  c.),  as  true  of  this  early  period,  it  would  seem  that  a  remarkable  concession 
was  made  to  the  habits  of  the  natives,  in  measuring  the  roads  of  the  further 
provinces  by  leagues  instead  of  miles.     But  the  Itineraries  authorize  no  such 
distinction. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  ff 

Lugdunum  was  a  new  creation  of  the  Roman  power,  of 
which  it  was  the  citadel  and  the  symbol,  the  moral  and  the 
material  pledge.  From  its  position,  combined 

..,    .,  ,.,.•,    •  j          -Ji       Extent  to 

with  its  political  importance,  it  advanced  rapidly  -which  seif-gov- 
in  wealth  and  numbers,  and  within  perhaps  half  a™orded7o  the 
a  century  had  attained,  next  to  Narbo,  the  great-  Gaullah  Btates< 
est  population  of  any  Gaulish  city.1  The  territory  specially 
assigned  to  it  was  withdrawn  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Gaulish  states  on  every  side.  It  was  not,  however,  the  policy 
of  the  emperor  to  break  up  the  old  nationalities,  or  attempt  to 
fuse  them  into  a  common  mass.  On  the  contrary,  nowhere 
was  the  common  artifice  more  systematically  employed,  of 
inviting  the  natives  to  self-government,  under  imperial  super- 
vision, with  a  machinery  fashioned  on  the  model  of  the  com- 
monwealth itself.  "We  have  seen  that,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Arvernians,  and  more  especially  of  the  ^Eduans,  the  sove- 
reign authority  was  exercised  throughout  Gaul,  either  by  in- 
dividual chiefs  or  aristocratic  federations.  This  form  of 
government  was  supported  by  the  influence  of  the  Druids, 
whose  religion  was  essentially  an  engine  of  aristocratic  polity. 
While  the  popular  assemblies,  wherever  the  power  was  in 
their  hands,  had  been  prompt  in  obeying  the  mandates  of 
Rome,  the  long  struggle  of  the  Gauls  against  Csesar  had  been 
constantly  fostered,  and  more  than  once  revived,  by  the  ani- 
mosity of  the  chiefs  and  priesthood.  Of  the  forms  of  popular 
government,  therefore,  the  conquerors  had  no  cause  to  be 
jealous.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  suffering  masses  of  the 
people  hailed  the  arrival  of  the  Romans  as  an  era  of  deliver- 
ance from  domestic  tyranny.  The  fears  and  anxieties  of  the 
new  rulers  of  Gaul  were  directed  to  another  quarter.  Au- 
gustus appears,  as  far  as  we  can  trace  the  landmarks  of  his 
policy  abroad,  to  have  studied  to  break  down  the  influence 
of  the  privileged  classes,  and  to  raise  up,  as  a  bulwark  against 
it,  the  machinery  of  popular  institutions.  His  first  care,  it 
would  seem,  was  to  obliterate  the  old  Gaulish  names  of  the 
principal  cities,  which  might  be  made  the  rallying  cry  of  the 

1  Strabo,  iv.  3.  p.  192. 


78  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

disaffected ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  while  he  changed  the 
designation  of  Bibracte  to  Augustodunum,1  and  transformed 
the  names  of  the  obscure  oppida  of  many  lesser  states  into 
strange  appellations  of  mixed  Romano-Celtic  sound,2  he  per- 
mitted Lugdunum,  as  the  representative  of  no  hostile  nation- 
ality, to  retain  the  vernacular  title  which  its  first  settlers  had 
chosen.3  To  these  cities,  each  the  centre  of  a  petty  tribe,  the 
people  of  each  district  were  invited  to  resort ;  in  them  the 
image  of  a  Roman  senate  or  curia  was  established,  to  be  the 
instrument  of  local  government  and  taxation ;  to  them  the 
Gauls  were  taught  to  look,  as  the  representatives  of  their 
name  and  nation  :  eventually,  but  at  what  period  we  cannot 
determine,  its  Roman  name  fell  into  disuse,  and  was  super- 
seded by  the  appellation  of  the  tribe  in  which  it  lay ;  and  the 
modern  titles  of  the  chief  cities  of  France  are  derived  almost 
without  exception  from  those  of  the  clans  which  were  ranged 
in  resistance  to  Ca3sar  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.4 

1  Augustodunum  (Autun),  the  hill  of  Augustus,  so  called,  I  presume,  from 
a  temple  of  Augustus  which  crowned  its  summit. 

4  As  for  instance  Juliomagus,  Csesarodunum,  Augustobona,  Augustoritum. 
All  such  places  as  these  become  not  merely  urbes,  but  civitates,  or  territorial 
communities.  The  limits  of  the  dioceses  of  France  down  to  the  Revolution 
generally  mark,  it  is  said,  the  ager  of  these  cities  respectively.  Bureau  de  la 
Malle,  Eton,  Pol.  des  Romains,  i.  193.  Walckenaer,  Geogr.  des  Gaules,  passim. 

*  It  is  singular  that  this  Celtic  name  (whatever  be  its  true  signification) 
should  have  been  chosen  by  the  mixed  Gauls  and  Romans  whom  the  Allobro- 
ges  expelled  from  Vienna,  for  the  city  built  for  them  by  Plancus  by  direction 
of  the  Roman  senate. 

4  The  original  names  of  the  places  mentioned  in  the  last  note  but  one  are 
not  known.  Their  Roman  titles  became  changed  respectively  into  Andecavi 
(Angers),  Turones  (Tours),  Tricasses  (Troyes),  Lemovices  (Limoges).  A  simi- 
lar change  took  place  with  regard  to  Gaulish  names  which  had  never  been  sup- 
planted by  Roman.  Thus  Samarobriva  became  Ambiani  (Amiens)  ;  Divodu- 
rum,  Mediomatrici  (Metz) ;  Nemetacum,  Atrebates  (Arras) ;  Lutetia,  Parisii 
(Paris) :  Durocortorum,  Remi  (Rheims) ;  Avaricum,  Bituriges  (Bourges) ;  Me- 
diolanum,  Santones  (Saintes) ;  Condivicnum,  Namnetes  (Nantes) ;  Limonum, 
Pictavi  (Poitiers) ;  and  many  more.  Such  a  change  is  rarely  found  hi  the  south 
of  Gaul,  where  the  Romans  had  the  longest  resided.  Toulouse,  Bourdeaux, 
Narbonne,  Aries,  Nismes,  Vienne,  Valence,  Aix,  Marseille,  &c.,  still  bear  the 
original  names  not  of  tribes  but  of  the  cities  themselves.  Such  is  generally 
the  case  throughout  the  more  advanced  parts  of  Gaul,  the  countries  of  the 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  7-9 

The  popular  assemblies,  however,  of  the  cities  were  in 
no  respect  strongholds  of  national  independence.  The  or- 
der of  decurions  or  curials  was  composed  of  citi- 

1         .  Functions  of 

zens  qualified  by  a  certain  census ;  their  officers,  their  popular 

,,.,.,  _     .  .          assemblies. 

the  duumvirs,  aediles,  quaestors,  and  Augustales, 
were  appointed  by  rotation  rather  than  by  election.  Ex- 
cept in  a  few  cases,  where  autonomy  was  specially  per- 
mitted, they  did  not  presume  to  legislate  in  any  but  the 
most  trifling  matters  of  municipal  regime.  They  merely 
registered  and  enforced  the  decrees  of  the  central  authority, 
and  provided  the  machinery  for  levying  on  families  and  indi- 
viduals their  share  of  the  quota  of  the  state.  These  quotas 
were  fixed  by  the  census,  which  was  instituted,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  Augustus,  during  his  brief  sojourn  in  Gaul  in  727  ; 
and  was  repeated  and  extended  by  his  command  at  subsequent 
periods.  The  moderate  impost,  or  military  contribution,  of  his 
predecessor,  was  now  increased,  we  may  suppose,  to  the  ordi- 
nary proportions  of  provincial  taxation,  and  pressed  more  and 
more  heavily  on  the  bulk  of  the  people,  as  favoured  citizens 
or  cities  were  admitted  to  the  immunities  of  the  Roman  fran- 
chise. The  political  and  fiscal  organization  of  the  province 
formed  the  basis  of  the  measures  for  retaining  it  in  subjection. 
The  discretion  with  which  municipal  privileges  were  conce- 
ded or  withheld,  and  personal  distinctions  awarded  or  prom- 
ised, softened  the  animosity  of  the  conquered,  while  the  show 
the  republic  could  make  of  her  vast  material  resources,  how- 
ever distant,  terrified  and  controlled  the  disaffected.  The 

JJdui  and  Sequani,  as  we  see  in  Autun,  Chalons,  Besancon,  Macon,  &c.  It  is 
remarkable  that  no  such  transformation  has  taken  place  in  the  local  appella- 
tives of  Spain  or  Britain.  The  Romans  changed  the  Iberian  into  a  Latin  name 
in  a  great  many  cases,  in  some  of  which  the  Latin  form  is  still  traced,  while 
in  others,  perhaps  the  greater  number,  the  original  name  has  been  recovered. 
In  Britain,  where  not  changed  by  the  Saxons,  our  cities  retain  the  British  local 
appellation,  as  Venta,  Londinium,  Lindum,  Eboracum.  The  cause  of  these 
peculiarities  is  difficult  to  trace,  and  cannot  be  discussed  within  the  limits  of 
a  note.  They  would  seem,  however,  to  show  that  the  municipal  system  was 
more  fully  developed  in  Gaul  than  in  the  other  provinces,  and  probably  with 
the  object  of  popularizing  the  local  governments  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  priests  and  nobles. 


80  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Political  im-      military  roads,  the  work  of  the  indefatigable 


Agrippa,  which  led  from  Lugdunuin  to  the  chief 

military  roads. 

cities  of  the  furthest  districts,  were  constructed 
for  pouring  the  legions  rapidly  to  any  point  of  danger,  while 
the  want  of  cross-roads  cut  off  their  intercourse  with  one 
another.1  Here,  as  elsewhere,  an  effective  system  of  posts 
was  established  from  place  to  place,  but  solely  for  the  use  of 
the  government,  which  could  thus  strengthen  itself  by  the 
means  of  communication  which  it  denied  to  its  subjects."  The 
itinerary  system  of  the  Romans  was  thus  an  effective  instru- 
ment of  centralization  in  Gaul,  just  as,  at  the  present  day,  the 
trunk  lines  of  railroad,  in  the  same  country,  bring  its  great 
cities  nearer  to  the  capital,  but  throw  them  relatively  further 
from  one  another.  Thus  enabled  to  defy  local  and  partial 
discontent,  the  Romans  found  themselves  at  liberty  to  concen- 
trate the  chief  forces  of  the  province  on  the  German  fron- 

1  Pompeius  is  said  to  have  made  a  line  of  road  over  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees  ; 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  Caesar  ever  constructed  any  great  permanent  way 
iii  Gaul  or  elsewhere.  Strabo  notices  the  roads  of  Agrippa  in  Gaul  (iv.  6.  p. 
208),  leading  from  Lugdunum  to  —  1.  the  Rhine  ;  2.  the  Somme  and  the  Chan- 
nel ;  3.  across  the  Cevennes  to  the  ocean  ;  4.  Massilia  and  Narbo.  Besides 
these  roads,  the  great  aqueduct  of  the  Pont  du  Gard  at  Nismes,  still  existing, 
is  ascribed  to  Agrippa  on  the  authority  of  inscriptions.  See  Frandsen  (Agrip- 
pa, p.  172.),  who  ascribes  it  to  the  date  of  Agrippa's  second  visit  to  Gaul,  A.  u. 
734,  735. 

a  The  little  that  is  known  of  the  post-system  of  the  empire  is  summed  up 
in  a  few  words  in  Becker's  HandbucJi,  iii.  i.  304.  "  The  institution  of  Augus- 
tus, which  became  the  basis  of  the  later  system  known  to  us  from  the  writings 
of  the  Jurists,  consisted  of  a  military  service  which  forwarded  official  dis- 
patches from  station  to  station  by  couriers,  called  in  the  earlier  imperial  period 
'  speculatores.  '  (Liv.  xxxi.  24.  ;  Suet.  Calig.  44.  ;  Tac.  Hist.  ii.  73.)  Per- 
sonal conveyance  was  confined  (as  in  the  time  of  the  republic)  to  officials  : 
for  this  purpose  the  mutationes  (posts)  and  mansiones  (night  quarters)  were 
assigned,  and  even  palatia  erected  at  the  latter  for  the  use  of  governors  and 
the  emperor  himself.  Private  individuals  could  take  advantage  of  these  state 
posts  within  the  provinces  by  a  special  licence  (diploma)  of  the  governor,  and 
at  a  later  period  of  the  emperor  only."  Under  the  republic  senators  and  high 
personages  could  obtain  the  posts  for  their  private  use,  as  a  matter  of  privilege. 
The  occupation,  it  may  be  observed,  of  the  posts  by  the  government,  would 
give  it  a  similar  advantage  to  the  monopoly  of  the  telegraphs  at  the  present 
day. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  81 

tier,  where  its  tranquillity  was  threatened,  not  by  internal 
disturbances,  but  by  foreign  invasion.  On  the  left  bank  of 
the  Rhine  Augustus  established  two  formidable  encampments, 
each  containing  four  legions,  which,  at  a  later  period  in  his 
reign,  were  quartered  in  smaller  detachments  on  a  long  line  of 
fortified  posts.  These  armaments,  ample  as  they  might  appear, 
were  further  reinforced  by  inviting  unsettled  hordes  from  the 
German  side  to  take  up  their  residence  within  the  Roman 
frontier,  and  thus  opposing  barbarians  to  the  barbarians  them- 
selves.1 Ca3sar  himself  had  been  the  first  to  introduce  this 
policy,  to  which  his  successors  in  after  times  attached  increas- 
ing importance.  The  lexions  were  attended  by  bands  of  na- 
tive auxiliaries,  furnished  and  supported  by  the  principal  cities, 
in  which  the  most  restless  spirits  of  the  province  were  trained 
to  obey  and  admire  their  conquerors,  till  long  absence  from 
their  homes  completed  the  process  of  estrangement. 

At  an  earlier  period  every  conquest  of  the  Roman  arms 
was  followed  by  the  rush  of  emigration  to  the  region  newly 
opened  to  Italian  industry  and  adventure.  In  the 

,  .  .  ,  .,     .          ,       Progress  of 

age,  however,  which  we  are  now  considering  the  Roman  civiiiai- 
springs  of  enterprise  had  become  relaxed.  The 
revolution  which  had  brought  the  products  of  every  land  in 
an  unceasing  stream  to  Rome  itself,  had  left  the  Romans  satis- 
fied, for  the  most  part,  with  the  indolent  enjoyment  of  wealth 
and  luxury  thus  wafted  to  their  shores.  Nevertheless  the  in- 
fluence of  their  civilization  continued  to  increase  abroad  in 
power  and  attraction.  The  provincials  on  every  side  sought 
with  fatal  ardour  to  naturalize  the  tastes  and  habits  to  which 
they  were  prone  to  ascribe  the  superiority  of  their  conquerors. 
Divitiacus,  as  we  have  seen,  had  sojourned  for  years  at  Rome, 
and  attended  upon  Caesar  in  his  campaigns,  without  acquiring 
the  use  of  the  Latin  idiom.  But  his  countrymen  soon  wiped 

1  Strabo,  iv.  3.  p.  194. ;  Tac.  Ann.  xii.  2Y.  The  transplantation  of  the 
Ubii  from  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  to  the  district  of  Cologne  and  Bonn  on 
the  left,  was  the  work  of  Agrippa,  and  may  be  assigned  to  the  year  716. 
Frandsen,  Agrippa,  p.  102.  Suetonius  is  doubtless  incorrect  in  ascribing  it 
to  the  emperor  himself.  Suet.  Oct.  21. 
VOL.  iv. — 6 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

out  the  stain  of  his  indolence  or  incuriousness.  They  destined 
their  capital  Bibracte,  which  they  now  entitled  the  Hill  of 
Augustus,  to  be  the  literary  metropolis  of  Gaul,  and  embraced 
with  eagerness  the  imperial  present  of  a  school  for  instruction 
in  the  liberal  arts.1  MassiUa  continued  to  be  the  centre  of 
Greek  education,  and  taught  the  Gauls  within  the  sphere  of 
its  influence  to  become,  as  the  writers  of  that  language  fondly 
phrased  it,  Philhellenes.9  The  literature  of  the  South  flour- 
ished for  centuries  as  a  brilliant  exotic  at  Tolosa,  Arelas,  and 
"Vienna :  Lugdunum  became  celebrated  for  its  rhetorical  con- 
tests.8 The  Gauls,  naturally  loquacious,  litigious,  and  impas- 
sioned in  thought  and  gesture,  rushed  to  the  contests  of  the 
bar  as  a  congenial  exercise,  while  both  medicine  and  philoso- 
phy, imported  from  abroad,  found  zealous  cultivators  among 
their  acute  and  enquiring  spirits.4  They  renounced  the  stir 
of  the  camp  and  battle-field  for  the  formalities  of  municipal 
government.  The  jealousy  of  the  Italian  landlords  forbade 
them  to  cultivate  the  vine  and  olive,  to  which  their  soil  has 
since  proved  so  propitious ; 5  but  they  devoted  themselves  to 
raising  corn  and  cattle,  particularly  horses,  together  with  the 
fabrication  of  arms,  cloths,  and  stufls,  of  various  kinds  and 
qualities.8 

1  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  43. :  "  Augustodunum  caput  gentis nobilissimam 

Galliarum  sobolem  liberalibus  studiis  ibi  operatam." 

2  Strabo,  iv.  1.  p.  181. :    ir6\is  TO?J  fiap&apois  ftuSeurfiplov 

^lAe'AATjvaj  KareffKfvafff  rot/r  Tab-drou. 

1  Ausonius,  de  Clar.  Urb. :  "  Gallula  Roma  Arelas."  The  same  writer  baa 
a  series  of  portraits  of  the  professors  of  eloquence  at  Burdigala,  not  less  illustri- 
ous in  their  day  perhaps  than  the  commentators  in  the  gallery  at  Leyden.  For 
Lugdunum  see  more  particularly  the  well-known  passages,  Juvenal,  i.  44.; 
Suet.  Calig.  20. 

4  Strabo,  /.  c. :  voQurrfa  yovv  vroSe'xojTeu,  rovs  ft.lv  ISid  rovs  8«  ol  v6\tii 
KOIVII  m/rdovufvoi,  Ka.8dirfp  Kal  larpovs. 

s  Cic.  de  Republ.  iii.  9. :  "  Nos  vero  justlssimi  homines  qui  transalpine  gen- 
tes  oleam  et  vitem  serere  non  sinimus,  quo  pluria  Bint  nostra  oliveta  nostraeque 
vineae."  The  prohibition  was  early  defied  (see  Suet.  Domit.  7.)  and  eventu- 
ally repealed.  Vopisc.  Prob.  18. 

•  In  the  Notitia  Dignitatum  Imp.  Occidentis,  c.  32.,  seven  cities  of  Gaul 
are  enumerated  as  seats  of  military  manufactures :  Argentoratum,  Matisco, 
Augustodunum,  Suessiones,  Remi,  Treviri,  and  AmbianL  Atrebates  was  also 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  g3 

The  pursuit  of  arms,  arts,  and  literature  might  soothe  the 
restlessness  of  the  Gauls,  and  keep  them  industrious  and  obe- 
dient. The  extension  of  municipal  government 
contributed  to  check  the  excessive  influence  of  the  countenances 
chiefs,  and  to  balance  the  authority  of  the  priest- 
hood. The  spiiit  of  Druidism,  the  popular  religion  of  the 
greater  part  of  Gaul,  was  essentially  opposed  to  the  admix- 
ture of  any  foreign  civilization,  and  this  element  of  disaffec- 
tion the  conquerors  studied  in  various  ways  to  counteract. 
Augustus,  in  offering  citizenship  to  the  most  favoured  of  the 
nation,  made  the  renunciation  of  Druidism,  as  incompatible 
with  Roman  usage,  a  primary  condition  of  its  acceptance.1 
Such  a  mode  of  discountenancing  a  suspected  cult  was  a  step 
beyond  the  ordinary  policy  of  Rome ;  for  hitherto  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  government  had  confined  itself  to  forbidding  ob- 
noxious practices  within  the  walls  of  the  capital.  Augustus 
affected  pious  horror  at  the  custom  of  human  sacrifices,  which 
had  been  expunged,  indeed,  from  the  Roman  ritual  itself 
within  less  than  a  hundred  years,  but  which  the  Druids  con- 
tinued undoubtedly  to  practise  more  constantly  and  exten- 
sively than  had  been  ever  done  by  the  Romans  or  Etruscans. 
But  while  the  taking  of  human  life  was  forbidden,  a  compro- 
mise was  made  with  the  priests,  who  were  permitted  to  punc- 
ture the  skin  of  the  victim,  and  sprinkle  a  few  drops  of  his 
blood  upon  the  altar." 

Another  and  less  direct  way  of  emasculating  the  obnox- 
ious superstition,  was  to  fuse  it,  by  means  of  real  or  fancied 

famous  for  its  fabric  of  red  cloth  for  the  legions.  Trebell.  Gallien.  6.  with 
the  notes  of  Salmasius.  "  Vestitur  Gallia  rufis."  Martial.  Lingones,  Santones, 
and  Cadurci  manufactured  woollen  and  flaxen  fabrics.  See  Moreau  de  Jonnea, 
Statistique  de,s  Peuples  anciens,  p.  661.  Comp.  also  Juvenal,  ix.  30.  for  the 
coarse  character  of  the  Gallic  woollens;  and  Martial,  vi.  11.:  "Te  Cadmea 
Tyros,  me  pinguis  Gallia  vestit." 

1  Suet.  Claud.  25. :  "  Religionem  Druidarum  apud  Gallos  tantum  civibus 
sub  Augusto  interdictum." 

4  Mela,  iii.  2. :  "  Manent  vestigia  (i.  e.  under  Claudius,  sixty  years  later) 
severitatis  abolitae,  atque  ut  ab  ultimis  caedibus  temperant,  ita  mhilommus,  ubi 
devotos  altaribus  admovere,  delibant." 


84:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

introduction  of  amnities>  with  the  recognized  polytheism  of  the 
Roman  poly-  empire.  The  great  principle  of  the  imperial  gov- 
ernment, inherited  indeed  from  the  republic  itself, 
was  to  declare  the  essential  unity  of  the  various  habits  and 
ideas  of  its  heterogeneous  subjects.  Druidism,  it  was  now 
proclaimed,  was,  in  its  spirit,  no  other  than  the  common  reli- 
gion of  the  Roman  world.  Caesar  himself  had  remarked,  not 
without  surprise,  that  the  Gaulish  priesthood  held  the  same 
notion  about  the  gods  as  the  rest  of  mankind.  Here  was  the 
germ  of  the  grand  idea  for  the  pacification  of  the  country, 
which  Augustus  seized  and  appropriated.  The  emperor  car- 
ried across  the  Alps  the  principle  which  the  senate  had  so 
often  applied  to  Etruria,  Greece,  and  Asia.  The  gods  of  Gaul 
were  admitted  to  the  citizenship  of  the  Roman  Olympus,  the 
pantheon  of  the  civilized  world.  Teutates  and  Belenus,  Ar- 
duinna  and  Belisana,  were  declared  to  be  merely  local  and 
special  appellations  for  the  universal  divinities  of  Mercury 
and  Apollo,  Diana  and  Minerva.1  Taranis  was  identified  with 
Jove  the  Thunderer ;  Camul  or  Hesus  with  Mars,  the  patron 
of  the  conquering  city.  Augustus  dedicated  a  temple  to  the 
god  Kirk  or  Circius,  the  spirit  of  the  Bise,  a  blighting  wind 
of  the  Southern  coast,  over  which  he  was  supposed  to  reign 
Worship  of  AU-  vi^  malignant  influence.*  So  far  did  he  advance 
gustos  in  Gaui.  m  fyfa  work  of  fusion  as  to  claim  himself  a  place 
among  the  Gaulish  deities,  and  to  encourage  his  flatterers  to 
invoke  his  divinity  in  connexion  with  the  genii  of  their  own 
cities.'  A  few  years  later  we  shall  see  them  erect  an  altar 
and  consecrate  a  ritual  in  honour  of  Augustus  and  Rome. 

1  The  collections  of  inscriptions  give  numerous  examples  of  the  worship 
of  the  old  Gaulish  divinities  under  the  combined  Roman  and  Gaulish  names, 
e.  g.  Marti  Camulo,  Minervse  Belisanae,  Apollini  Beleno,  Marti  Belatucardo ; 
sometimes  we  find  such  combinations  as  Beleno  Augusto ;  one  inscription  in 
Orelli  (1960)  gives  Ardoinnae,  Camulo,  Jovi,  Mercuric,  Herculi.  There  are 
also  monuments  to  the  local  divinities  of  Gaul,  as  Dese  Bibracti,  Deae  Deironae. 

1  Senec.  Qu.  Nat.  v.  17. :  "Divus  certe  Augustus  templum  illi  (Circio), 
quum  hi  Gallia  moraretur,  et  vovit  et  fecit."  Lucan,  i.  407. :  "  Solus  sua  li- 
tora  turbat  Circius." 

f  "  Augusto  sacrum  et  Genio  civitatis  Biturigum  Viviscorum."  Gruter,  Inter. 
p.  227.  Thierry,  Gaulois,  ill  258. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  85 

Such  was  the  specious  compromise  of  religious  sentiment 
which  the  Gauls  were  invited  to  accept.  As  usual  in  such 
cases,  in  the  towns  and  among  the  higher  classes,  DigContentof 
the  new  ideas  flourished  in  the  sunshine  of  politi-  the  Druidfl- 
cal  favour ;  while  the  multitude,  particularly  in  the  remoter 
districts,  continued  to  cling  the  more  fervently  to  their  an- 
cient forms  and  usages.  The  Druids  had  to  choose  between 
the  two  classes  of  devotees,  the  courtly  and  powerful,  the 
rude  and  sincere.  Whatever  their  interest  might  have 
prompted,  their  love  of  country,  their  old  habits  and  convic- 
tions, above  all  their  pride  of  caste  and  reputed  sanctity,  for- 
bade them  for  the  most  part  to  acquiesce  in  a  sacrilege  com- 
mitted by  the  hands  of  foes  and  strangers.  They  kept  sul- 
lenly aloof  from  the  imperial  blandishments,  persisting  in  the 
practice,  discountenanced  but  not  yet  forbidden,  of  their  rude 
but  imposing  ceremonies ;  they  fostered  the  spirit  of  national 
hatred  among  the  conquered  people,  maintained  in  secret  the 
reminiscence  of  ancient  glory  and  independence,  and  at  length, 
when  the  opportunity  arrived,  unfurled  the  standard  of  re- 
volt, and  once  more  led  their  clans  against  the  Roman  legions, 
with  the  watchwords  of  empire  and  freedom.1 

Besides  keeping  in  check  both  the  Druids  within  and  the 
Germans  beyond  the  frontier,  two  things  were  still  wanting 
to  secure  the  subjection  of  the  Gauls,  and  to  give 

,.  .11  /•        i     •  «   i    Augustus  satis- 

free  course  to  the  imperial  plans  for  their  social  fled  with  the 

mt_      A__.      .0  ^L  i    promise  of  tri- 

regeneration.    The  first  of  these  was  to  control  bute  from  the 
the  vaunted  freedom  of  the  neighbouring  tribes 
of  Britain,  which  Caesar  himself  had  felt  to  imperil  the  se- 
curity of  his  yet  unorganized  conquests.    The  constant  and 
increasing  intercourse  between  the  opposite  coasts,  while  it 
consolidated  the  power  of  the  island  chiefs,  might  sap  the 
foundations  of  submission  on  the  continent.    But  Augustus 
was  too  cautious  to  engage  in  an  enterprise  of  such  magnitude 
as  the  invasion  of  a  region,  the  resources  and  even  the  size 
of  which  were  but  imperfectly  known  to  him,  and  where  he 

1  Tac.  Hist.  iv.  54.  59. :  "  Ne  deessent  libertati .  .  .  juravere  pro  imperio 
Galliarum."  Thierry,  I.  c. 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

might  find  it  impossible,  even  after  a  first  success,  either  to  ad- 
vance or  recede  with  honour.  He  accepted  with  alacrity  the 
renewed  promise  of  annual  tribute,  however  little  he  might 
expect  its  punctual  fulfilment,  and  trusted  to  address  and  in- 
trigue, and  the  distribution  among  the  native  chiefs  of  hon- 
ours and  bribes,  for  the  gradual  preparation  of  a  future  con- 
quest. Meanwhile  the  Romans  continued  alternately  to  con- 
jure up  pictures  of  the  rudeness  and  inhospitality  of  the 
British  barbarians,  and  again  to  amuse  themselves  with  the 
thought  of  seeing  them  led  in  chains  along  the  Sacred  way ; l 
but  while  fully  convinced  that  their  arms  and  counsels  were 
alike  invincible,  they  were  content  to  leave  the  glory  of  the 
triumph  to  another  generation.* 

After  securing  the  conquered  people  from  contact  with 
external  liberty,  it  was  requisite  to  strengthen  the  bonds 
Operations  for  which  strained  them  to  the  conquerors  themselves. 
paCBM«nof  the  kike  tne  captive  chained  to  the  arm  of  the  soldier 
Alps.  wjjO  guarded  him,  the  provinces  were  bound  to 

Rome  by  the  great  military  ways.  But  these,  though  ex- 
tending through  the  length  of  Italy,  and  again  from  the  fron- 
tier to  the  extremities  of  the  provinces  beyond,  had  been  long 
intercepted  by  the  rugged  barrier  of  the  Alps,  the  perils  of 
which  were  aggravated  by  the  jealous  ferocity  of  their  native 
tribes.  Many  an  invader  indeed  had  penetrated  them  from 
either  side.  The  Gauls  and  Romans  had  alternately  burst 
through  every  obstacle,  to  strike  the  foe  couched  in  fancied 
security  beyond.  The  opposition  of  the  natives  had  suc- 
cumbed to  the  resistless  determination  of  a  Hannibal,  or  the 
overwhelming  armaments  of  a  Pompeius.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  the  intervals  of  these  international  conflicts,  the  spirit  of 

1  Hor.  Od.  iii.  4.  33. :  "  Visam  Britannos  hospitibus  feros." 
Epod.  1. :  "  Intactua  aut  Britannus  ut  descenderet 

Sacra  catenatus  via," 

2  It  was  perhaps  popularly  believed  that  the  Britons  had  actually  placed 
themselves  under  Roman  authority.     Compare  the  expression  of  so  grave  and 
sensible  a  writer  as  Strabo,  half  a  century  later :  ical  ointlav  ffx&ov  n  Tape- 
trittvaffav  rots  'Pwjuafou  faijv  r^v  t^jffof.  iv.  5.  p.  200. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  87 

traffic  had  tempted  solitary  passengers  to  thread  the  defiles, 
and  trample  a  narrow  pathway  through  the  everlasting  snows, 
while  they  purchased  the  forbearance  of  the  mountaineers  by 
a  regular  tribute.  Polybius  could  enumerate  in  his  time  three 
routes  over  the  western  Alps,  which  he  distinguished  by  the 
names  of  the  tribes  on  the  Italian  side,  through  whose  terri- 
tories they  ran.  On  the  one  hand  lay  the  coast-road  through 
the  lands  of  the  Ligurians ;  on  the  other  that  through  the 
country  of  the  Salassi,  or  the  valley  of  the  Dora  Baltea; 
while  a  third,  between  the  two,  traversed  the  region  of  the 
Taurini,  along  the  defile  of  the  Dora  Susina.1  Of  these  the 
first  was  most  commonly  adopted  by  the  Romans  under  the 
republic ;  and  the  Auretian  way,  which  conducted  from  Rome 
to  the  Cisalpine  frontier  on  the  west,  was  extended  under  the 
name  of  Julia  into  the  Province.  The  hostility,  however,  of 
the  unsettled  tribes  of  Liguria  made  it  often  impracticable, 
and  Pompeius  effected  a  securer  passage  for  his  troops,  that 
perhaps  which  now  conducts  over  the  Mont  Genevre,  while 
Caesar,  at  least  on  one  memorable  occasion,  penetrated  into 
Gaul  by  the  pass  of  the  Cenis.  The  final  subjugation  of  the 
Ligurians  was  effected  by  Augustus,  and  commemorated,  with 
that  of  the  other  tribes  of  the  Western  Alps,  on  a  monument, 
still  remaining,  not  far  from  Monaco.4  Henceforth  the  coast, 

1  Strabo,  iv.  6.  p.  209. :  S«et  Ai-yiW  ntv  -r^v  eyyjoTo  r$  Tvpfavutf  ir€\a.yfi  • 
flra  TV  5ta  Tavpivtav,  ^v  'AwijBaf  $tTJ\0(i>  •  tlra  rV  Sici  '2a\affffuv.  These 
are  still  the  principal  routes  for  entering  Italy  from  the  west.  It  is  uncertain 
whether  Polybius  was  aware  that  there  were  in  fact  two  practicable  passes 
through  the  Salassi — those  of  the  two  St.  Bernards,  or  the  Pennine  and  Graian 
Alps,  meeting  at  Aosta,  and  two  also  through  the  Taurini — those  of  the  Cenis 
and  Genevre,  which  were  both  known  as  the  Cottian  Alps,  meeting  at  Susa. 
But  if,  as  is  not  improbable,  he  was  only  thinking  of  the  descents  into  Italy, 
he  would  not  stop  to  particularise  every  separate  road  he  might  be  acquainted 
with. 

3  Strabo,  iv.  6.  The  spot  is  indicated  by  the  name  of  a  village,  Turbia 
(Tropsea),  Mannert,  ix.  27 1.  The  inscription  is  given  at  length  by  Pliny,  H.  N. 
iii.  24.  It  records  the  names  of  forty-four  conquered  tribes.  The  Ligurians, 
as  we  read  in  Dion,  liv.  24.,  were  finally  reduced  in  740,  but  as  the  inscription 
is  dated  Aug.  Imp.  xiii.  it  cannot  have  been  set  up  earlier  than  746.  See 
belww. 


88  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

or  Cornice  road,  became  as  safe  as  it  was  commodious  for 
communication  with  the  south  of  Gaul.  At  the  same  time 
the  path  over  the  Cenis,  the  nearest  route  to  Lugdunum, 
was  improved  and  secured  by  treaty  with  Cottius,  the  king 
of  the  Cottian  Alps,  which  included  the  spurs  and  summits 
of  the  Cenis,  Genevre,  and  Monte  Viso.  The  barbarian  chief 
was  allowed  to  retain  a  nominal  sovereignty  in  return  for  his 
zeal  and  fidelity,  and  the  bounds  of  Italy  continued  for  a  cen- 
tury to  be  placed  at  Ad  Fines  or  Avigliana,  the  first  ascent 
of  the  mountains.1  But  he  was  made  to  feel  his  entire  depend- 
ence on  his  patrons  by  the  galling  spectacle  of  a  Roman  col- 
ony planted  at  the  entrance  of  his  dominions,  Augusta  of  the 
Taurini,  or  Turin.  Beyond  this  Alpine  tract  lay  the  cluster 
of  the  Graian  mountains  and  the  pass  of  the  Little  St.  Bernard, 
with  which  also  the  Romans  were  already  familiar,  and  by 
which  Caesar  seems  to  have  sometimes  travelled.  The  moun- 
taineers, named,  as  we  have  seen,  Salassi,  who  occupied  the 
Italian  side  of  this  pass,  as  well  as  of  the  Great  St.  Bernard 
further  on,  constantly  resented  the  intrusion  of  strangers. 
Csesar  himself  had  once  lost  his  baggage  in  a  skirmish  with 
them.2  In  the  year  729  Terentius  Varro,  who  had  been  charged 
with  the  task  of  reducing  them,  persuaded  them  to  treat,  and 
then  attacked  them  unprepared,  and  captured  the  whole  tribe.3 
The  victims  of  this  signal  treachery,  8,000  fighting  men  and 
36,000  old  men,  women,  and  children,  were  sold  into  slavery ; 

1  The  Cottian  people  received  Latinitas,  and  Cottius  obtained,  with  the 
name  of  M.  Julius,  the  title  of  praefectus.  See  the  inscription  on  the  arch  of 
Susa  erected  by  him  (Orell.  626.) :  "  Civitates  quse  sub  eo  prsefecto  fuerunt." 
Comp.  Strabo,  /.  c. ;  Amm.  Marcell.  xv.  10.  The  date  of  this  inscription  is 
fixed  to  745  by  the  words  Aug.  Imp.  xiii.  Trib.  pot.  xv. ;  Fischer,  Roem. 
Zeittaf. 

8  Strabo,  iv.  6.  205. :  tfffaijffav  8«  irore  ical  xp^M*Ta  Kaf<rapos,  xal  litffiaXov 
Kprinvovs  ffrparoirfSois,  -irp6<f>aa-iv  &is  dtioiroiovvrts  %  yttpvpovvrfs  TOTOJUOUJ.  The 
same  writer  relates  that  the  Salassi  mulcted  Decimus  Brutus  one  drachma  per 
man,  when  he  crossed  their  mountains  in  his  flight  from  Mutina. 

8  This  Varro  was  a  Licinius  Murena,  adopted  by  an  A.  Terentius  Varro, 
whose  name  he  accordingly  bore.  He  continued,  however,  to  be  sometimes 
called  by  his  original  designation.  For  the  conquest  of  the  Salassi  see  Dion, 
liii.  25. ;  Liv.  Spit,  cxxxv. ;  Suet.  Oct.  21. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  iii.  21. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  89 

and  it  was  stipulated  that  their  masters  should  in  no  case 
emancipate  them  under  a  period  of  twenty  years.  At  the 
point  where  the  two  streams  meet  which  form  the  Dora  Bel- 
tea,  the  emperor  founded  a  military  colony,  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  Augusta  Pretoria,  now  Aosta,  to  assure  for 
ever  the  safe  passage  of  troops  and  wayfarers ;  and  at  the 
entrance  of  the  town  he  erected  a  triumphal  arch  to  attest  the 
utility  and  glory  of  his  conquest.1  The  reduction  of  the 
Salassi,  the  most  formidable  of  the  Alpine  tribes,  coincided 
with  the  submission  of  the  Cantabrians,  and  Augustus,  while 
still  occupied  with  the  settlement  of  affairs  in  Spain,  could 
command  the  temple  of  Janus  to  be  once  more  closed  at 
Rome.*  This  speedy  repetition  of  the  auspicious  solemnity 
of  four  years  previously,  shows  how  popular  the  idea  of 
peace  now  was  with  the  Romans ;  it  marks  the  striking 
change  that  had  taken  place  in  the  character  of  the  times  and 
the  people,  and  what  a  field  was  open  for  the  creation  of  a 
new  national  policy. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  how  means  of  access  were 
finally  secured  for  the  Roman  arms  to  the  nations  beyond  the 
western  Alps.  Henceforth  the  conquerors  and  progress  of  the 
their  subjects,  in  that  quarter,  might  peacefully  fSS?™** 
coalesce.  To  occupy  the  defiles  of  the  mountains  Thrace- 
to  the  east  was  a  matter  of  hardly  less  importance,  in  order 
to  reach  the  Rha3tians,  the  Vindelicians,  and  the  Pannonians, 
with  whom  Rome  had  become  gradually  implicated  in  almost 
constant  hostilities.  Our  account,  however,  of  its  conflicts  in 
this  quarter  may  be  conveniently  deferred.  Beyond  the 
Adriatic  Augustus  had  shared  in  person  the  hardships  and 
perils  of  the  Roman  warfare  against  the  Dalmatians  and  Uly- 

1  Dion,  liii.  25. ;  Strabo,  iv.  6.  p.  206. 

2  Dion,  liii.  26. ;  Oros.  vi.  21. ;  "  Cantabricae  victories  hunc  honorem  Caesar 
detulit,  ut  tune  quoque  belli  portas  claustro  cohiberi  juberet.     Ita  tune  secun- 
do  per  Caesarem,  quarto  post  urbem  conditam  clausua  est  Janus."    This  does 
not  of  course  imply  that  Rome  had  never  been  at  peace  but  twice  before 
Augustus,  in  the  legendary  period  of  Romulus  and  Numa,  but  that  no  chief 
had  been  encouraged  by  the  temper  of  the  times  to  make  a  political  merit  of 
restoring  it. 


90  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

rians,  the  success  of  which,  if  effected  by  no  brilliant  victories, 
was  not  the  less  solid  and  permanent.  But  the  advance  of 
his  lieutenants  was  not  checked  by  the  range  of  the  Mona 
Boebius,  which  separates  the  waters  of  the  Adriatic  from 
those  of  the  Danube  and  the  Euxine.  Forty  years  before 
Actium,  while  Lucius  Lucullus  was  engaging  Mithridates  in 
Asia,  his  brother  Marcus  first  traversed  the  vast  plains  of 
Mcesia,  and  checked  the  league  of  Scythians  and  Sarmatians 
with  which  the  king  of  Pontus  was  meditating  to  penetrate 
into  Italy.1  The  dread  of  such  a  combination  among  the 
unknown  hordes  of  the  North  survived  the  overthrow  of  the 
man,  who  alone,  perhaps,  could  have  hoped  effectually  to 
wield  it.  Accordingly,  among  the  projects  of  Caesar,  which 
divided  his  attention  with  the  task  of  chastising  the  Parthians, 
was  that  of  a  military  promenade  along  the  northern  shores 
of  the  Euxine  and  Mxeotis.  His  successor  shared,  indeed,  in 
no  such  romantic  visions ;  but  he  allowed  his  lieutenants  to 
follow  in  the  track  of  Marcus  Lucullus,  to  check  the  aggres- 
sions of  the  nomade  races  of  the  plains,  and  reduce  the  Greek 
colonies  on  the  western  coast  of  the  Euxine  to  more  direct 
obedience.3  Istrus  and  Dionysopolis,  Odessus  and  Tomi, 
Calatis  and  Apollonia,  accepted  his  powerful  protection 
against  the  Mcesians  encamped  around  them,  and  the  Get®, 
lazyges,  and  Dacians,  who  crossed  the  Danube  and  poured 
over  the  morasses  of  lower  Scythia.3  These  places  became  the 
outposts  of  the  Roman  power,  the  factories  of  Roman  com- 
merce, in  some  cases  the  prisons  of  Roman  tyranny ;  but  the 
subjugation  of  Mcesia  itself  continued  through  the  reign  of 
Augustus  to  be  merely  nominal :  it  was  not  till  the  time  of 
his  successor  that  tribute  was  first  exacted  from  it,  when  it 

1  A.  u.  681.  B.  c.  73.    Liv.  Epit.  xcvii. ;  Eutrop.  vi.  7. ;  Oros.  vi.  3. 

a  Dion,  li.  23-27. 

3  The  sites  of  these  places  lay  on  the  Bulgarian  coast,  but  none  of  them, 
I  believe,  have  been  clearly  identified.  For  the  names  of  the  hostile  nations 
by  which  they  were  threatened,  see  Ovid  in  the  Tristia  and  Ex  Ponto.  Yirgil 
and  Horace  mention  the  DacL  Ukert,  Geogr.  der  Griech.  und  Roem.  pt.  iii. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  91 

became  annexed  to  the  province  of  Ulyricum.1  Some  por- 
tions of  this  latter  country  were  suffered  to  continue  under 
the  sovereignty  of  native  chieftains,  who  were  dignified  with 
the  title  of  king,  and  alliance  with  Rome,  in  return  for  the 
real  surrender  of  their  independence.  The  victories  which  he 
claimed  over  the  Moesians,  indecisive  as  they  were,  gained  for 
M.  Crassus  the  honours  of  a  triumph.  In  Thrace  he  was 
emulated  by  a  Lentulus  and  a  Piso.  Rome  was  appalled  by 
the  accounts  these  commanders  transmitted  of  the  ferocity 
of  their  captives,  who  gnawed,  it  was  said,  their  chains  in  the 
fury  of  a  savage  despair.2 

From  the  northern  we  may  pass  once  more  to  the  southern 
frontier  of  the  empire,  and  the  remote  realms  of  the  Moor 
and  the  Numidian,  where  Augustus  without  a 

n.  .      ,  ,.  ,          ,  .,  .^.         The  kingdom 

ioe   or   rival  could  make  a  graceful   exhibition  of  Mauretama 

n  ,         ,.  ,  .,  rrn  „  given  to  Juba. 

oi  moderation  and  generosity.  The  sway  01 
the  Mauretanian  Bocchus  extended  from  the  shores  of  the 
Atlantic  to  the  city  of  Salda,  and  its  independence  had 
been  guaranteed  by  Julius  Caesar  after  the  battle  of  Thap- 
sus.  He  had  enlarged  it,  moreover,  with  a  portion  of  Juba's 
dominions,  or  rather,  perhaps,  restored  to  it  some  territories 
which  the  N"umidian  had  wrested  from  it.  This  donation 
was  confirmed  by  Octavius,  to  whom  Bocchus  continued 
to  his  death  in  devoted  obedience.  Upon  this  event,  which 
occurred  in  721,  the  triumvir,  it  might  be  expected,  would 
annex  this  sovereignty  to  the  empire.  He  abstained,  how- 
ever, from  this  aggression,  and  a  few  years  later,  in  729, 
appointed  Juba,  the  son  of  the  late  king  of  Numidia,  who 
had  been  educated  at  Rome,  and  imbued  with  due  veneration 
for  Roman  institutions,  to  rule  as  a  friend  and  ally  over  it. 
At  the  same  time  he  gave  the  young  chieftain  for  wife  Cleo- 
patra Selene,  the  daughter  of  Antonius  and  his  Egyptian 
paramour,  and  even  transferred  to  their  protection  her  broth- 
ers Ptolema3us  and  Alexander.  The  respect  and  even  favour 
he  thus  displayed  to  the  children  of  his  great  enemy,  whom 
Octavia  herself  had  bred  up  with  her  own  children,  deserves 

1  Appian,  Bell,  fllyr.  c.  30.  a  Floras,  iv.  12. 


92  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

to  be  honourably  recorded.    It  was  intended,  perhaps,  as  a 
mark  of  his  sincere  affection  for  his  noble  sister.1 

The  dominions  of  the  peaceful  and  studious  Juba  were 
enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  tract  which  lies  eastward 
The  province  fr°m  Salda  to  the  river  Ampsaga.  This  was  the 
of  Africa.  boundary  of  the  Roman  province  of  Africa,  which 
extended  from  hence  to  the  greater  Syrtis ;  the  ancient 
domain  of  Carthage  having  been  increased  by  the  accession 
of  the  conquered  realm  of  Numidia.  This  region  had  been 
completely  pacified  by  the  wise  administration  of  Caesar ;  nor 
did  it  ever  again  betray  an  inclination  to  espouse  the  repub- 
lican cause.  When  the  ports  of  Italy  were  opened  to  its 
ample  stores  of  grain,  it  advanced  rapidly  in  wealth  and  im- 
portance, and  even  the  extortions  of  its  prefect  Sallustius 
failed  to  shake  its  fidelity.  On  the  second  division  of  the 
empire  between  the  triumvirs,  its  importance  was  such  that 
it  could  be  assigned,  with  some  appearance  of  respect  and 
good  faith,  as  the  sole  portion  of  one  of  the  contracting  par- 
ties. After  the  overthrow  of  Lepidus,  Augustus  considered 
the  province  as  his  own  conquest,  and  of  all  his  possessions 
there  was  none  that  caused  him  so  little  anxiety  or  expense. 
A  single  legion  sufficed  to  maintain  it,  and  the  emperor  could 
concede  its  government  to  the  senate  without  prejudice  to 
his  own  interests ;  nor  throughout  the  long  period  of  his 
reign  did  it  ever  require  his  presence,  a  fact  which  could  be 
affirmed  of  only  two  provinces  of  the  empire,  one  doubtless 
the  most  obscure,  the  other,  perhaps,  the  most  tranquil  of  all* 

1  Dion,  li.  15.,  liii.  26. ;  Strabo,  xvii.  3.  p.  828. 

4  Sardinia  and  Africa.  Suet.  Oct.  47.  The  Cyrenaica  should,  I  believe, 
be  added.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  the  Fasti  record  no  less  than  five 
triumphs  over  Africa,  that  is,  over  the  wild  tribes  on  the  frontier,  such  as  the 
Garamantes  and  others  (see  Plin.  H.  N.  v.  5.),  in  the  early  years  of  the  em- 
pire; those,  namely,  of  Statilius  Taurus,  A.  u.  720;  of  L.  Cornificius,  722; 
of  L.  Autronius  Paetus,  725  ;  of  L.  Sempronius  Atratinus,  733 ;  and  of  L. 
Cornelius  Balbus,  735.  This  Balbus  was  nephew  to  Caesar's  friend.  Pliny 
remarks  that  he  was  the  only  foreigner  (i.  e.  from  beyond  Italy)  who  ever  en- 
joyed the  honour.  He  was,  moreover,  the  last  Roman  subject  who  triumphed. 
The  province  of  Africa  being  senatorial,  the  emperor  scrupled  thus  long  to 
curtail  the  right  of  the  senate  to  reward  its  own  officers. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  93 

Beyond  the  great  Syrtis  eastward  lay  the  province  of  the 
Cyrenaica,  which  enjoys  throughout  the  whole  course  of  Ro- 
man history  a  remarkable  immunity  from  politi-  r^  Cyre. 
cal  vicissitudes.  Surrendered  to  the  republic  by  naloa- 
the  will  of  its  last  Macedonian  sovereign  Ptolemaeus  Apion, 
it  was  for  a  time  allowed  to  retain  its  freedom,  on  pay- 
ment of  a  moderate  tribute.  Upon  the  pretext,  however,  of 
quarrels  occurring  between  its  cities,  the  Romans  shortly 
afterwards  interfered:  Lucullus  formed  it  into  a  province 
about  the  year  680,  and  Metellus  combined  it  under  one 
government  with  the  opposite  island  of  Crete.1  To  the 
transfer  of  its  allegiance,  and  again  to  the  loss  of  its  indepen- 
dence, it  submitted  without  a  murmur,  and  gave  its  annual 
tribute  of  the  gum  silphium,  which  was  worth  its  weight  in 
silver,  without  repining.  The  sword  was  never  required  to 
enforce  its  submission.  In  the  civil  wars,  indeed,  it  ventured 
to  assert  its  indifference  to  either  side,  and  it  was  fortunate, 
when  for  a  moment  it  refused  admission  to  the  republican 
force  under  Cato,  to  meet  with  an  equitable  opponent  who 
abstained  from  chastising  its  presumption.  Throughout  the 
long  period  of  its  connexion  with  Rome  the  Cyrenaica 
attached  itself  to  no  political  movements,  nor,  remote  and 
obscure  as  it  was,  did  it  ever  become  the  battle-field  of  con- 
tending parties.  Nor  was  it  less  favoured  by  the  blessings 
of  nature.  Its  configuration  is  that  of  a  large  segment  of  a 
circle  projecting  into  the  Mediterranean ;  and  it  consists  of  a 
series  of  terraces  rising  one  behind  another,  like  the  seats  of 
a  vast  inverted  theatre,  to  a  depth  of  eighty  or  an  hundred 
miles  into  the  interior,  till  bounded  by  a  range  of  lofty  sum- 
mits which  protect  it  from  the  simoom  of  the  desert.  Upon 
these  terraces,  fanned  by  cool  breezes  from  the  sea,  grow  the 

1  The  precise  date  of  the  reduction  of  the  Cyrenaica  is  still  a  matter  of  dis- 
pute in  consequence  of  the  differing  statements  of  Eutropius,  vi.  9.,  and  Appian, 
Bell.  Civ.  i.  111.  See  Becker's  Roem.  Alt.  iii.  1.  222.  note.  The  union  of 
Crete  and  Cyrene  continued  under  Augustus,  who  made  it  a  senatorial  prov- 
ince under  a  propraetor  with  the  title  of  proconsul.  See  an  inscription  in 
Gruter,  p.  415.  5. 


94:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

products  of  as  many  different  climates,  and  the  fortunate 
inhabitants  of  its  five  cities  gathered,  in  a  succession  of 
harvests  prolonged  through  eight  months  of  the  year,  the 
grams  of  the  north  and  the  fruits  of  the  south  of  Europe, 
together  with  the  gums  and  perfumes  of  Asia  and  Africa.1 
One  only  drawback  to  such  manifold  advantages  is  recorded 
in  the  annual  recurrence  of  a  plague  of  locusts :  to  this  must 
be  added  the  customary  extortion  of  the  Roman  officials,  as 
similar  in  kind,  and  repeated  in  similar  succession.  Never- 
theless, the  Cyrenaica,  if  not  free  from  this  endemic  pesti- 
lence, may  have  escaped  better  than  most  of  its  kindred  pro- 
vinces ;  no  instance,  at  least  as  far  as  I  remember,  occurs  of  a 
public  scandal  in  this  quarter. 

Crossing  the  elevated  plain  of  the  Libyan  desert,  and 

descending  the  Catabathmus,  its  eastward  slope,  we  alight  on 

the  fertile  valley  of  the  Nile,  the  latest  and  most 

The  province  of  .  ...  /.  T-»  T  • 

Egypt  and  the    precious  acquisition  of  Home.    Little  more  than 

regions  border-   ,     ,,,  ,      ,     ,  ,     .  .in  -,•.•      •> 

ing  on  the  Ara-  halt  a  century  had  elapsed  since  the  first  political 
intercourse  of  the  Romans  with  the  Egyptians, 
and  in  that  brief  period  the  arms,  and  still  more  the  craft,  of 
the  Western  conquerors  had  reduced  the  kingdom  of  the 
Ptolemies  to  complete  servitude.  The  neighbouring  realm  of 
Palestine  was  traversing  with  slower  and  less  direct  steps  the 
same  fated  cycle  from  independence  to  servitude,  but  at  this 
moment,  as  we  have  seen,  it  had  only  reached  the  stage  of 
royal  vassalage.  At  no  extremity  of  the  empire  did  the  pulse 
of  Roman  life  beat  more  energetically  than  in  these  regions. 
The  south-eastern  angle  of  the  Mediterranean  had  become  the 
common  theatre  of  the  commercial  activity  of  all  nations. 
Greeks  and  Syrians,  Jews  and  Ethiopians,  Persians  and  Ara- 
bians were  all  mingled  together  at  this  central  focus  ;  but  the 
Romans,  more  resolute  and  self-confident  than  any,  more 
shrewd  perhaps  and  keen  in  business  than  most  of  their  com- 
petitors, were  thrusting  themselves  into  every  emporium  of 
trade,  and  founding  factories  in  every  haven.  Rome  had  long 

1  Herod,  iv.  198,  199. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xiii.  4. ;  xvii.  30. ;  and  other  au- 
thorities referred  to  in  the  article  "  Cyrenaica,"  Smith's  Diet.  Anc.  Geography. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  95 

been  glutted  with  the  glories  of  Grecian  civilization ;  statues 
and  bronzes,  plate  and  jewels,  had  been  poured  with  un- 
bounded profusion  into  her  markets :  but  the  luxury  of  the 
masters  of  the  world,  and  not  less  of  their  mistresses,  was 
now  taking  another  direction,  and  the  purveyors  to  their  taste 
and  cupidity  were  ransacking  the  east  and  south  of  Asia  for 
gums  and  spices,  silks,  ivory,  and  costly  woods,  for  all  the 
most  curious  products  of  India  and  Arabia,  their  birds  of 
gayest  plumage,  and  their  slaves,  bedizened  with  gems  and 
fragrant  with  aromatic  odours.1  The  chief  emporium  of  this 
traffic  was  Petra,  the  rock-hewn  city,  which  filled  a  narrow 
gorge  in  the  mountains  of  Seir,  and  kept  the  gate  of  the 
eastern  and  western  desert.  From  a  port  on  the  Arabian 
shore  of  the  Red  Sea,  to  which  the  Greeks  gave  the  name  of 
Leuce  Come  or  the  White  Village,  the  merchandise  of  India, 
Arabia,  and  Ethiopia,  was  carried  on  the  backs  of  camels  to 
Petra,  and  from  thence  to  Rhinocolura  on  the  Mediterranean, 
for  dispersion  throughout  the  western  world.2  But  the  pro- 
ducers of  these  luxuries,  living  in  the  rudest  simplicity, 
demanded  few  of  the  products  of  Europe  in  return,  and  Italy 
continued  for  centuries  to  exchange  for  them  its  precious 
metals  only.  In  the  year  730,  the  higher  circles  of  the  capital 
were  amused  and  excited  by  the  rumour,  that  the  emperor 

1  Ovid.  Amor.  ii. :  "  Psittacua  Eois  imitatrix  ales  ab  India." 
Virg.  Geo.  i.  57.  :  "  India  mittit  ebur,  molles  sua  thura  Sabsei." 
Hor.  Od.  i.  29. :  "  Puer  quia  ex  aula  capillia 

Ad  cyathum  statuetur  unctia." 

For  the  vegetable  producta  of  India  and  Arabia,  see  particularly  Plin.  H.  N. 
xii.  8.  foil.  The  objecta  of  Indian  commerce,  at  its  fullest  extent,  are  enumer- 
ated by  the  author  of  the  Periplus  maris  Erythrcei,  and  in  the  Digest,  xxxix. 
4.  16.,  de  publicanis  et  vectigalibus.  But  these  authorities  refer  to  a  later 
period. 

2  Strabo  tella  ua  that  in  hia  time,  within  half  a  century,  the  route  of  Ara- 
bian commerce  had  changed  to  Myos  Hormus  and  Alexandria  by  the  Nile. 
This  was  in  consequence  of  the  great  impulse  given  to  the  trade  of  Egypt  by 
its  Roman  masters.     Strabo,  xvi.  4. :  vvvl  5e  rb  vKtov  «v  r^v  'A\f£dvSp(iav  rf 
Nfi'Ay  Kardyfrcu,  rit,  5'  in  TTJS  'Apa#t'os  /cal  TTJ*  'IvSiicfjs  els  Vlvos  '6pfJ.ov,  evff 
virfp6f<rts  (Is  Koirrdv  T?)J  07)j8at8oy  /caju^Xois,  %  SitSptryi  rov  Ntftov,  KeifJLfinj  tit 


96  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

was  about  to  send  an  expedition  to  acquire  the  native  seats 
of  these  splendid  luxuries.  The  actual  views  of  the  govern- 
ment were  kept  perhaps  in  studied  obscurity,  and  free  scope 
was  given  to  the  wildest  ideas  of  avarice  and  ambition.  The 
East,  in  the  imagination  of  the  Romans,  glittered  with  gold 
and  jewels,  as  with  the  rays  of  its  own  morning  sun.  The 
defeat  of  Crassus  was  still  unavenged  ;  the  disasters  of  An- 
tonius  unretrieved  ;  the  fabled  treasures  of  the  great  Parthian 
cities  invited  the  hand  of  the  spoiler,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  treaties  his  ruler  had  made  with  their  chiefs,  or  of  the 
motives  of  the  policy  which  still  kept  his  sword  in  its  scab- 
bard. With  ideas  thus  vague  and  unsettled,  the  objects  of 
the  meditated  enterprise  were  easily  confounded  in  the  minds 
of  the  Romans.  At  home  they  had  little  notion  of  commerce 
apart  from  conquest,  and  their  cupidity  was  inflamed  by  the 
splendours  paraded  before  them  in  the  triumphs  of  Pompeius 
and  Augustus.  Accordingly,  in  the  current  language  of  the 
day,  as  we  may  gather  it  from  the  poets  of  the  court,  the 
arms  of  Rome  were  to  be  directed  against  the  Parthians  and 
Medes,  the  Arabians  and  Indians,  the  Bactrians  and  Seres.1 
The  land  of  the  morning  was  to  be  explored  sword  in  hand, 
subjugated  and  ransacked.  The  young  nobles  cast  aside  the 
tomes  of  the  philosophers,  and  equipped  themselves  in  breast- 
plates of  Iberian  steel,  abjuring  the  tame  lessons  of  content 
and  simplicity  for  the  prospect  of  illimitable  booty.*  Au- 
gustus might  shudder,  perhaps,  at  seeing  how  little  the  peace- 
ful occupations  to  which  he  had  directed  the  Roman  youth 
had  really  taken  hold  of  their  minds.  Neither  did  it  enter 
into  his  views  to  hazard  any  great  scheme  of  oriental  con- 


1  Compare  Hor.  Od.  i.  29.:  Propert.  ii.  10.,  iii.  4.  ;  Virgil,  j£n.  vii.  604. 
"  Sive  Getis  inferre  manu  lachrymabile  bellum 
Eoisve  Arabisve  parant,  seu  tendere  ad  Indos, 
Auroramque  sequi,  Parthosque  reposcere  signa." 

*  Hor.  I.  c.  :     "  Cum  tu  coemptos  undique  nobiles 

Libros  Panaeti,  Socraticam  et  domum, 
Mutare  loricis  Iberis 
Pollicitua  meliora  tendia." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  97 

quest :  he  shrank  from  risking  an  encounter  with  the  formid- 
able Parthians ;  he  limited  his  preparations  to  a  scale  propor- 
tioned to  an  exploring  expedition,  rather  than  an  invading 
armament. 

Even  at  a  later  period,  indeed,  sober  historians  did  not  scru- 
ple to  affirm  that  the  object  of  Augustus  was  either  to  form 
relations  of  commerce  with  the  Arabs  and  Ethio-  Expedition  of 
pians,  or,  if  necessary,  to  reduce  them  to  submis-  ^i^t^"8 
sion  by  force  of  arms  ;  but  the  account  they  give  Ar*blpn7V 
of  the  means  employed  seems  to  show  that  no  B- c- 2t 
armed  occupation  of  distant  regions  was  actually  contem- 
plated. The  force  placed  under  the  command  of  .-^Elius 
Gallus,  the  officer  chosen  for  the  service,  amounted  only  to 
ten  thousand  men,  forming  apparently  no  more  than  a  single 
legion,  with  auxiliaries,  of  whom  one  thousand  were  Naba- 
thaeans  and  five  hundred  Jews.1  The  legionaries  were  drafted 
from  the  army  of  Egypt,  and  Gallus  himself  had  recently 
served  there  under  the  prefect  Petronius.  The  blunders, 
however,  which  he  committed  from  the  very  outset,  bespeak 
a  strange  want  of  local  information.  The  Romans,  with 
their  usual  vanity,  ascribed  them  to  the  treachery  of  their 
adviser  Sylteus,  a  minister  of  the  N"abatha?an  king  Obodas, 
who  sought,  they  declared,  both  in  his  own  interest  and  that 
of  his  master,  to  harass  the  invaders  in  every  possible  way. 
But  the  first  delay  was  caused  by  the  error  of  equipping  large 
war-galleys  for  the  navigation  of  the  Arabian  coast,  which  is 
full  in  many  parts  of  shoals  and  rocks.  The  expedition  was 
kept  waiting  at  Cleopatris  at  the  head  of  the  gulf  of  Hero- 
opolis  till  a  new  flotilla  of  smaller  vessels  could  be  equipped. 
"When  all  was  ready  it  dropped  down  the  gulf  to  the  point  of 
Drepanum,  and  then  crossed  the  mouth  of  the  Elanitic  gulf 

1  Strabo,  xvi.  4. :  txu>v  "^P'  f-vplovs  vt£ovs  T£>V  IK  Trjs  Alyvirrov  'Pw 
ualuv  KoL  Ttav  ffvfj./j.dxwv,  ai>  -ffffav  'lovSaioi  jjifv  ireiraK({<r«H,  Na£aTa7oi  5e 
XI'AJOJ.  These  words  have  been  generally  understood  to  mean  that  there  were 
10,000  Romans  besides  allies ;  but  I  believe  my  interpretation  is  more  correct. 
Two  legions  constituted  the  ordinary  garrison  of  Egypt,  and  ^Elius  Gallus  was 
only  a  subordinate  to  the  prefect. 
TOL.  iv. — 7 


98  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

to  the  Arabian  coast.  Here  it  ought  to  have  made  good  its 
landing,  and  taken  the  caravan  route  southward  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  spice  regions  of  Arabia  Felix  or  Yemen,  to  which 
it  was  bound.  But  Syllseus,  we  are  told,  assured  Gallus  that 
there  was  no  practicable  coast  route,  and  persuaded  him  to 
continue  his  course  by  sea  as  far  as  Leuce  Come  (Haura).  In 
this  latter  part  of  its  voyage,  the  fleet  suffered  severely  from 
the  difficulties  of  the  navigation  and  the  violence  of  winds 
and  tides ;  and  the  men  were  already  dispirited  when  they 
first  touched  land  after  a  passage  of  fifteen  days.  From  hence 
it  was  determined  to  march  into  the  spice  country,  opening 
relations  with  the  intervening  states,  chastising  such  as 
opposed  or  betrayed  any  jealousy  of  the  armed  strangers, 
and  leaving  garrisons  at  the  most  important  posts  for  the 
security  of  their  return.  But  though  the  object  of  the  expe- 
dition was  not  properly  warlike,  it  was  the  crafty  policy  of 
Sylla3us  to  engage  it  in  hostilities  with  tribe  after  tribe,  in 
order  to  exhaust  and  finally  destroy  it.  Before,  however, 
the  Romans  could  move  in  advance,  they  were  dreadfully 
harassed  by  sickness,  which  particularly  affected  their  mouths 
and  legs,  and  seems  to  have  been  the  same  which  modern 
travellers  have  described  as  endemic  on  that  part  of  the  coast.1 
When,  at  last,  after  passing  a  summer  and  the  succeeding 
winter  under  these  distresses,  the  army  was  ready  to  march, 
Syllaeus  directed  it  into  the  country  of  Aretas,  a  chief  in 
alliance  with  Obodas.  This  is  the  name  frequently  given  by 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  to  chiefs  of  northern  Arabia,  and 
from  this  and  other  circumstances  it  seems  probable  that  the 
route  of  Gallus  lay,  not  southward,  in  the  first  instance,  but 

1  Strabo  says,  ffrofj.aKa.KKri  re  Kal  ffKf\orvpl3ri  weipa^ojieVf;?  TTJS  ffrpartas 
tirtX&piois  vdOtfft,  which  is  curiously  confirmed  by  the  observations  of  Burck- 
hardt  (Travels  in  Arabia,  i.  182.  446.  &c.) :  "  My  stay  at  Djidda  was  pro- 
longed to  three  weeks,  chiefly  in  consequence  of  sore  legs,  a  disease  very  pre- 
valent on  this  unhealthy  coast,  where  every  bite,  if  neglected,  becomes  a 

serious  wound I  believe  that  one  fourth  of  the  population  of  Djidda  is 

constantly  afflicted  with  ulcers  on  the  legs."  See  Forster's  Hist.  Geogr.  of 
Arabia,  5i.  280.  Djidda,  it  should  be  remarked,  is  300  miles  south  of  Haura; 
but  Burckhardt's  observations  apply  to  the  whole  coast  of  the  Hedjaz. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  99 

eastward,  into  the  central  plateau  of  the  great  peninsula, 
known  by  the  name  of  El  Nedjed ;  and  that  the  territory  of 
Aretas  himself  was  El  Kasim,  lying  on  the  caravan  track  from 
Medina  to  Bahrein  on  the  Persian  Gulf.1  Even  here,  though 
the  country  was  not  unfriendly,  and  the  track  not  unfrequent- 
ed, the  strangers  were  subjected,  by  the  artifices  of  Syllaeus, 
to  severe  privations ;  but  when,  at  last,  they  turned  south- 
ward across  an  inhospitable  desert,  in  quest  of  Agrana  (Ned- 
jran),  at  the  first  descent  of  the  hills  towards  the  Red  Sea, 
their  sufferings  became  intense.  Three  months  were  spent  in 
reaching  this  spot,  where  the  Romans  found  rest  and  refresh- 
ment, the  chief  having  fled  at  their  approach,  and  the  tribe 
having  yielded  with  little  resistance.  Six  days  beyond  Agra- 
na, the  Romans  fought  a  battle  on  the  banks  of  a  river,  in 
which  they  boasted  of  destroying  ten  thousand  Arabs  with 
the  loss  of  two  men  only.  Nevertheless,  from  hence  every 
step  was  contested,  and  six  months  had  passed  before  they 
reached  the  city  of  Marsyaba,  which  lay  within  two  days  of 
the  spice  country,  the  cherished  object  of  their  expedition. 
But  the  resistance  they  here  encountered,  together  with  the 
want  of  water,  determined  them  to  retire  from  before  its 
walls  at  the  end  of  six  days.  They  had  become  persuaded  of 
the  treachery  of  Syllaeus,  who  had  led  them  by  a  painful  and 

1  Strabo  says  that  Syllseus  led  the  Romans  KVK\oiropelan.  Mr.  Forster 
justly  remarks,  "  While  Callus  might  be  and  was  deceived,  a  Roman  general 
could  not  be  altogether  befooled  by  his  Arab  conductor.  Total  ignorance  of 
the  country  might  betray  him,  as  it  had  betrayed  Crassus,  into  taking  a  totally 
wrong  road — an  error  which  his  subsequent  better  knowledge  of  the  country 
enabled  him  eventually  to  correct ;  but  no  amount  of  ignorance  could  induce 
him  to  be  led,  like  the  characters  of  a  modern  drama,  round  and  round  a 
horse-pond,  as  must  have  been  pretty  much  the  case,  could  we  believe  him 
to  have  employed  alternately  six  months  and  two  months  in  his  passage  through 
the  same  line  of  country.  Yet  this  is  the  ground  taken  by  our  highest  modern 
authorities.  D'Anville,  Gosselin,  Vincent,  all  agree  in  conducting  and  recon- 
ducting  the  Roman  army  through  the  Hedjaz."  Forster  supposes,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  army  described  two  sides  of  a  triangle  on  its  advance,  and  took 
the  base  on  its  retreat.  See  below.  Pliny,  #.  If.  vi.  32.,  refers  to  this  expe- 
dition, and  gives  a  list  of  towns  which  the  Romans  occupied  on  their  route ; 
but  their  names  afford  little  or  no  assistance  in  determining  it. 


100  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

circuitous  route,  in  order,  as  was  supposed,  to  employ  their 
arms  in  chastising  tribes  unfriendly  tp  his  master.  Exhausted 
as  the  Romans  were,  their  leader  relinquished  the  attempt  to 
penetrate  southward,  and  commenced  his  retreat.  Having 
once  more  reached  Agrana,  instead  of  retracing  the  route  by 
which  he  had  come,  he  turned  to  the  left  in  the  direction  of 
the  Red  Sea,  from  whence  he  led  his  army,  apparently  with- 
out impediment,  along  the  coast.  On  reaching  Nera  Come 
(Yembo),  where  he  arrived  in  sixty  days,  he  fell  in  with  the 
flotilla  which  had  been  despatched  southward  to  wait  on  his 
movements,  and,  once  more  embarking  with  the  remnant  of 
his  soldiers,  crossed  over  the  gulf  to  the  Bay  of  Hormas.1 
The  failure  of  the  expedition  must  have  been  a  severe  mortifi- 
cation to  Augustus,  whose  power  rested  to  so  great  a  degree 
on  the  reputation  of  success ;  but  he  threw  a  veil  over  it,  by 
retaining  and  even  promoting  Gallus  in  his  service,  and  by 
refraining  from  the  infliction  of  punishment  on  Syllaeus.  The 
one  on  his  return  was  appointed  prefect  of  Egypt,  the  other 
ventured  to  appear  in  person  at  Rome,  where  he  negotiated 

1  The  main  points  to  be  determined  in  tracing  the  route  of  this  expedition 
are  Leuce  Come,  Nera  Come,  and  Marsyaba.  The  two  first  of  these  are,  I 
think,  satisfactorily  settled  by  Mr.  Forster  (Geogr.  of  Arabia,  ii.  27*7.  foil.). 
The  first  corresponds  in  signification  with  El  Haura,  the  White  City,  and  also 
in  its  distance  (fifteen  days'  voyage)  from  Cleopatris,  the  distance  in  miles, 
taking  the  sinuous  line  of  the  coast,  being  stated  at  470,  or  31  miles  a  day. 
Mr.  Forster  shows  also,  from  Golius,  that  Nera,  a  barbarous  Greek  word  for 
water,  agrees  in  meaning  with  Yembo,  the  name  of  a  town  eighty  miles  south 
of  Haura  on  the  coast  of  the  Hedjaz.  Marsyaba  may  very  possibly  be  Saba 
or  Sabbia,  lying  midway  between  the  modern  Mecca  and  Mareb,  with  the 
former  of  which  it  has  been  identified  by  Gosselin,  but  by  D'Anville,  followed 
by  Gibbon,  with  the  latter.  Mareb,  however,  lies  hi  the  centre  of  the  spice 
region,  while  Mecca  is  too  distant  from  it.  I  think,  with  Mr.  Forster,  that 
Gallus  went  eastward  from  Haura  in  the  first  instance  (and  this  was  the  opinion 
of  Burckhardt  and  of  Walckenaer,  Vie  d'Horace,  i.  664.),  though  I  cannot  im- 
agine that  he  got,  as  that  writer  represents,  almost  within  sight  of  the  Persian 
Gulf.  Mr.  Forster  lays  great  stress  on  the  mention  of  the  river,  which  he 
thinks  he  can  prove  was  the  Sancan,  the  only  stream  in  the  vicinity  of  Nedjran. 
But  his  identification  of  Agrana  with  Nedjran  on  the  caravan  route  from  the 
Persian  Gulf  into  Yemen  cannot  be  fully  relied  on,  and  the  maps  I  have  been 
able  to  consult  differ  widely  from  each  other. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

either  for  his  master  or  for  himself,  but  eventually,  being 
detected  in  a  fresh  treason,  expiated  his  offence  with  death.1 

While  Gallus  was  thus  occupied  in  Arabia,  his  superior 
officer  Petronius,  the  governor  of  Egypt,  was  employed  in 
chastising  the  encroachments  of  the  Ethiopians  petronius,  the 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Red  Sea.  During  the  E^^VGai. 
latter  years  of  the  feeble  and  enervated  rule  of  lus  in  Esypt- 
the  Macedonians  the  resources  of  that  fertile  country  were 
allowed  to  run  to  waste,  and  even  the  defence  of  their  fron- 
tiers had  been  neglected.  While  Alexandria  flourished  from 
the  concourse  of  all  nations  in  its  streets,  and  from  the  in- 
creasing development  of  Oriental  trade,  the  old  cities  of 
Upper  Egypt  had  utterly  decayed,  the  industry  of  the  native 
Copts,  no  longer  strung  to  the  utmost  by  importunate  task- 
masters, had  relaxed  and  dwindled  away,  and  the  Arabs  of 
Nubia  and  Ethiopia  had  encroached  upon  their  domains,  and 
occupied  their  crumbling  halls.2  The  artificial  channels  for 
the  irrigation  of  the  soil,  on  which  the  whole  welfare  of 
Lower  Egypt  depended,  had  become  choked  with  sand  ;  the 
canal  from  the  Nile  to  the  head  of  the  Red  Sea,  begun  by 
Sesostris  or  Darius,  and  which  the  Ptolemies  had  undertaken 
to  complete,  had  either  been  left  unfinished  or  was  rendered 
useless  from  want  of  repairs  ;  the  traffic  of  India,  which,  even 
in  default  of  continuous  water  communication,  might  have 
been  brought  by  a  short  portage  to  the  valley  of  the  Nile, 
had  been  allowed  to  become  diverted  to  the  route  of  Petra  ; 
and  not  more  than  twenty  vessels  were  despatched  annually 
from  Arsinoe  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  Augustus  undertook 
to  repair  all  these  disorders,  and  unfold  the  boundless 
resources  of  his  new  province.  But  his  first  prefect,  Cor- 
nelius Gallus,  was  found  unequal  to  the  charge,  in  which, 


1  Strabo,  1.  c.  :  rri<re  8e  «ol  SiKas  4i>  'P«M!?>  irpoffirotovfufvos  ntv  <pi\iav,  e'Ae- 
yX&*l*  &*  *?&*  avrrj  ry  irovripltf  xal  &\\a  Katcovpyuv,  Kal  aTrorfiriOelsr^v  Kf(pa\-(iv. 

2  Thus  the  city  of  Coptos  was  occupied  jointly  by  Egyptians  and  Arabs, 
that  is,  Ethiopians.     Strabo,  xvii.  1.  p.  816.     But  the  principal  evidence  on  this 
point  is  drawn  from  the  large  proportion  of  Arab  skulls  among  the  mummies 
of  this  period.    Sharpe's  Hist,  of  Egypt,  ch.  i.  §  3. 


102  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

besides  indulging  in  personal  vanity,  he  had  excited  by  ill- 
judged  severity  the  disaffection  of  an  irritable  population. 
He  had  been  removed,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  government 
of  Egypt,  and  his  place  had  been  supplied  by  C.  Petronius, 
who  brought  zeal  and  activity  to  his  work.  The  new  govern- 
or speedily  quelled  the  risings  of  the  Alexandrians,  and  set 
his  legionaries,  freed  from  the  task  of  coercion,  to  clear  the 
canals  and  remove  the  causes  of  insurrection.1  When  this 
beneficent  work  was  completed,  it  was  found  that  a  rise  of 
the  Nile  waters  of  twelve  cubits  sufficed  to  cover  a  tract  of 
country  which  had  previously  required  fourteen.2 

A  portion  of  the  army  of  Egypt  was  now  drafted  off  on 
service  in  Arabia ;  but  about  the  same  time  the  encroachments 
He  defends  the  of  the  barbarians  on  the  frontier  had  become 
an°at't^ekfofthe  intolerable,  and  it  was  necessary  to  employ  a 
EOA.0?!J732.  force  to  chastise  them.  Petronius  repaired  to 
Syene,  and  demanded  of  the  Ethiopian  queen 
Candace,  the  restitution  of  the  booty  her  subjects  had  carried 
off,  including  some  statues  of  the  emperor  himself.  The 
barbarians  retorted  by  complaints  of  the  aggression  of  Roman 
officers  on  the  frontiers ;  to  which  Petronius  replied  that  the 
ruler  of  Egypt  was  Caesar  himself,  and  with  him  they  had  to 
deal  and  not  with  his  lieutenants.  "When,  not  comprehending 
this  argument,  they  ventured  to  meet  him  in  the  field,  they 
were  easily  routed,  and  pursued  far  into  their  own  territories. 
Candace,  who  is  described  as  a  woman  of  great  spirit,  and  the 
more  terrible  to  behold  from  the  loss  of  an  eye,  consented  to 
treat  for  peace  with  the  cession  of  the  spoils  demanded,  and 
of  the  fortified  post  of  Premnis ;  but  no  sooner  had  Petro- 
nius withdrawn  than  she  collected  her  forces  to  attack  the 
garrison  he  had  left  there,  and  compelled  him  to  rush  back  in 
haste  to  its  rescue.  Negotiations  again  ensued,  and  the 
Roman  referred  his  adversary  to  Cffisar  himself  for  terms  of 
permanent  pacification.  On  her  demanding  who  Ccesar  was, 

1  Suet.  Oct.  18. 

a  Strabo,  xviL  1.  p.  788.     Ten  cubits,  instead  of  twelve,  according  to 
Groskurd's  reading. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  103 

he  despatched  her  envoys  to  Augustus,  who  was  then  in  per- 
son at  Samos,  and  the  emperor,  satisfied  with  their  protesta- 
tions of  respect,  and  sensible  of  the  fruitlessness  of  attempting 
to  extend  his  sway  into  their  wild  regions,  released  their 
nation  from  the  tribute  his  prefect  had  imposed  on  them.1 
On  the  return  of  jElius  Gallus  from  Arabia  he  wlas  appointed 
to  succeed  Petronius  in  the  prefecture.  In  the  progress 
which  he  made  to  Syene  he  took  with  him  the  geographer 
Strabo,  then  a  young  man,  to  whose  personal  examinations 
and  inquiries  on  the  spot  we  owe  the  minute  details  about 
Egypt  recorded  in  his  great  work. 

In  the  year  733  Augustus  once  more  quitted  the  seat  of 
his  government  to  make  a  proconsular  progress  through  the 
Oriental  provinces,  and  settle  their  administration 

,    n    ..       ,       .          s\      •!•  i        /•     ,      •   •,     i    Progressof Au- 

on  a  definite  basis.  On  his  way  he  first  visited  gustus  into  the 
Sicily,  where  he  planted  Roman  colonies  in  Syra-  °i.'  u.  733. 
cuse  and  other  cities,  impoverished  perhaps,  or 
depopulated,  by  the  effects  of  the  late  war,  and  at  the  same 
time  withdrew,  as  it  would  appear,  the  privilege  of  citizenship 
accorded  generally  to  the  islanders  by  Antonius.*  From  thence 
passing  into  Greece,  he  bestowed  favours  on  Sparta,  which 
had  been  loyal  to  his  interests,  while  he  mulcted  the  Athe- 
nians, guilty  of  the  grossest  flattery  of  his  rival,  of  the  most 
lucrative  of  their  privileges,  that  of  selling  the  freedom  of 
their  city.3  Thence  he  crossed  to  the  island  of  Samos,  where 
he  passed  the  winter,  shaming,  perhaps,  by  his  simplicity  the 

1  Strabo,  xvii.  1.  p.  820.    The  campaign  of  Petronius  is  referred  to  the 
year  732  :  Dion,  liv.  5.     Augustus  is  supposed  to  have  coveted  a  footing  in 
Ethiopia  or  Abyssinia,  from  the  apprehension  that  the  natives  might  at  any 
time  ruin  Egypt  by  turning  the  course  of  the  Nile  into  the  Red  Sea.     Such  a 
project  was  actually  entertained  by  Albuquerque,  the  great  captain  of  the 
Portuguese  in  the  East,  to  punish  the  Egyptian  Sultan  for  his  opposition  to  the 
establishments  of  that  people  in  India.     M'Culloch's  Economical  Policy,  p.  292. 

2  Among  the  sixty-eight  cities  of  Sicily  enumerated  by  Pliny  (Hist,  Nat. 
iii.  14.)  six  only  are  specified  as  having  the  Roman  franchise.    We  do  not 
know  when  the  franchise  was  withdrawn,  and  the  act  is  ascribed  to  Augustus 
only  conjecturally.     Dureau  de  la  Halle,  Econ.  Pol.  des  Homains,  i.  322. 

3  Dion,  liv.  Y. ;  Spanheim,  Orb.  Rom.  i.  61. 


104:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

orgies  enacted  on  the  same  spot  by  the  wretched  Antonius, 
and  receiving  the  envoys  of  many  vassal  potentates,  among 
them,  as  we  have  seen,  those  of  the  queen  of  Ethiopia.  In 
the  ensuing  spring  he  landed  on  the  continent  of  Asia,  and 
undertook  the  arrangement  of  its  political  condition,  not 
heeding  the  distinction  he  had  himself  made  between  the 
provinces  of  the  emperor  and  the  senate,  but  exercising,  in 
virtue  of  his  proconsular  power,  the  same  unlimited  authority 
throughout  all  as  had  been  conceded  to  Pompeius  by  the 
Gabinian  law. 

Armed  with  irresponsible  power,  that  great  conqueror  had 
prostrated  the  whole  Lower  Asia  under  the  supremacy  of 
Political  organ-  Rome  ;  but  the  dependence  to  which  he  had 
-  reduced  its  various  districts  differed  in  form  and 


er  A«a.  degree.    At  the  commencement  of  the  imperial 

rule  a  small  portion  only  of  the  regions  which  extended  to 
the  Phasis  and  Euphrates  was  strictly  provincial  soil  ;  for  in 
the  centre,  and  by  the  side  of  these  provinces,  certain  wide 
tracts  were  still  allowed  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  native 
princes  and  priests,  in  addition  to  which  a  few  favoured  terri- 
tories were  still  suffered  to  call  themselves  autonomous.  The 
power,  however,  of  the  one,  and  the  freedom  of  the  other, 
were  held  alike  in  fact  at  the  mere  will  of  the  conquerors. 
The  political  status  of  all  these  regions,  excepting  that  of  the 
province  of  Asia,  properly  so  called,  was  grounded  on  the  acts 
of  Pompeius,  ratified  by  the  decree  of  the  senate  ;  and  the  sys- 
tem he  created  continued  to  subsist  in  all  its  principal  features 
into  the  imperial  period.  The  dissensions  of  the  republic, 
the  conflict  of  Roman  parties  in  this  distant  sphere,  the  irrup- 
tion of  the  Parthians,  the  intrigues  of  less  powerful  barbarians 
on  the  frontiers,  and,  above  all,  the  caprice  and  violence  of 
Antonius,  had  each  in  turn  assailed  and  shaken  it  ;  Augustus 
himself,  in  his  rapid  progress  through  Asia  on  his  return  from 
Egypt,  had  modified  it  in  various  particulars.  But  the  work 
which  he  meditated  was  not  yet  complete,  and  the  same  hand 
which  had  organized  the  western  half  of  the  empire  in  accord- 
ance with  the  matured  system  of  the  imperial  policy,  was 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  105 

now  employed  in  finally  regulating  the  affairs  of  the  opposite 
hemisphere. 

Bithynia  and  Asia  were  the  only  provinces  in  this  quarter 
which  Augustus  was  content  to  surrender  to  the  government 
of  the  senate.  Of  these  Asia  was  the  earliest 

...  n  ,,.i  -i,         TT-I  The  provinces 

acquisition  of  the  republic  beyond  the  Jkgean,  of  Asia  and 

.      ,     __,  .  />    -nr      •         T     i-        Bithynia. 

and  comprised  the  regions  of  Mysia,  Lydia, 
Caria,  and  probably  the  greater  part  of  Phrygia.1  This 
magnificent  territory  had  been  originally  obtained  by  the 
testament  of  the  last  of  the  Attali,  whose  kingdom  of 
Pergamus  had  been  extended  by  the  aid  of  the  Romans 
themselves  far  beyond  its  proper  limits.  Bithynia  had  also 
been  acquired  by  the  voluntary  cession  of  its  sovereign  Nico- 
medes.  When  formed  into  a  province  it  was  extended  by 
Pompeius,  at  the  expense  of  the  dominions  of  Mithridates,  as 
far  as  the  Halys,  so  as  to  include  the  whole  seaboard  of 
Paphlagonia,  together  with  a  part  of  Pontus.  It  was  divided 
from  Asia  by  the  Rhyndacus,  a  river  which  falls  into  the 
Propontis  :  and  its  southern  frontier  was  marked  by  the  ridge 
of  Mount  Olympus,  which  separated  it  from  Galatia  and 
Phrygia.  These  provinces  had  been  subdivided  into  numer- 
ous districts  for  the  convenience  of  levying  the  appointed 
tribute.  Thus  in  Asia  there  were  as  many  as  forty  of  these 
regions,  each  having  its  chief  town  ;a  another  division  was 
that  into  conventus  or  circles  for  judicial  and  administrative 
purposes,  much  fewer  in  number  and  proportionally  more 
extensive.  The  chief  cities  of  Asia,  six  in  number,  were 
denominated  metropoles,  and  of  these  Ephesus  was  the  princi- 
pal, and  the  capital  of  the  whole  province ;  but  in  all  there 
were  enumerated  not  less  than  five  hundred.8  Under  the 
republic  both  Asia  and  Bithynia  were  governed  by  proprae- 
tors, but  under  the  emperors  the  officers  appointed  to  admin- 

1  Cic.  pro  Place.  2*7. 

s  This  was  the  division  of  Sulla,  which  was  generally  maintained  by  his 
successors.  See  Becker,  Roem.  Alterth.  iii.  1.  134. 

8  Becker,  from  Philostr.  vit.  Sophist,  p.  36.  21. ;  and  Joseph.  Sell.  Jud. 
ii.  16.  4. 


106  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

ister  them  by  the  senate  took  the  style  and  rank  of  pro- 
consuls.1 

With  these  arrangements,  which  constituted  the  ordinary 
machinery  of  provincial  government,  Augustus  did  not  inter- 
Compensation  fere-  His  attention  was  directed  to  meting  out 
metedt^the"  justice  to  the  states  and  cities  which  had  either 
cities  of  Aeia.  si^e(j  with  his  enemies  or  been  maltreated  by 
them.  Several  autonomous  cities  were  now  deprived  of  their 
freedom,  while  others  which  had  suffered,  whether  from 
Brutus  or  Antonius,  received  munificent  compensation  by 
grants  of  territory  or  relief  from  taxation.  This  retributive 
policy  Augustus  had  already  inaugurated  in  his  earlier  pro- 
gress ;  but  now,  after  an  interval  of  ten  years,  he  still  found 
his  work  incomplete,  and  the  claims  of  those  who  had  suffered 
in  his  cause  urged  him  to  carry  it  out  to  the  uttermost.  The 
people  of  Cyzicus,  who  had  seized  some  Roman  citizens  in  a 
popular  tumult,  scourged  and  executed  them,  were  now 
punished  with  the  loss  of  their  national  freedom ;  a  punish- 
ment which  was  inflicted  also  subsequently  on  the  people  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon."  These  cities  fell  henceforward  under  the 
direct  control  of  the  proconsul.  On  the  other  hand,  several 
Asiatic  communities  were  now  presented  with  the  Roman  or 
the  Latin  franchise.  The  temple  of  the  Grecian  Artemis 
claimed  from  remote  antiquity  to  confer  rights  of  asylum 
on  the  wretches  who  took  refuge  within  its  enclosure.  Alex- 
ander of  Macedon  had  extended  this  privilege  to  the  circuit 
of  one  stadium  around  it ;  Mithridates,  letting  fly  an  arrow 
from  the  corner  of  the  roof,  had  slightly  overshot  this  limit, 
and  enlarged  the  sacred  precincts  accordingly ;  but  Antonius 
had  doubled  the  radius  of  the  circle,  so  as  to  embrace  within 
its  sphere  a  large  portion  of  the  city.  The  Ephesians  them- 
selves exclaimed  that  this  put  their  homes  and  hearths  in  the 
power  of  evil-doers,  and  Augustus  performed  a  popular  act 
in  confining  the  asylum  once  more  within  reasonable  limits.' 

1  Strabo,  xvii.  p.  840. ;  Dion,  liii.  12.  14. 

1  Dion,  liv.  7. ;  Suet.  Oct.  47. 

3  Strabo,  xiv.  1.  p.  641.  :    'A\f£a.v$pov  f*ei>  e'irt  ara^tov  eVreiVavros, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  107 

At  the  south-western  angle  of  Asia  Minor  several  places 
on  the  coast  of  Caria  were  held  by  the  Rhodians,  whose  island 
still  retained  a  nominal  freedom,  and  vaunted  cariaand 
itself  as  the  last  stronghold  of  the  maritime  and  Rhode8- 
commercial  spirit  of  ancient  Greece.  Before  the  establish- 
ment of  Roman  supremacy  in  the  East,  Rhodes  might  not 
unjustly  style  herself  the  mistress  of  the  sea.  In  the  civil 
wars  she  had  furnished  a  large  fleet  to  Pompeius,  which  she 
had  withdrawn  from  the  service  of  the  senate  after  the  defeat 
of  Pharsalia.  Her  docks  and  arsenals  continued  under  Au- 
gustus to  be  the  objects  of  her  pride  and  solicitude.  Herein 
still  resided,  or  seemed  to  reside,  the  secret  of  the  independ- 
ence which  even  the  emperor  respected,  and  she  punished 
with  death  the  prying  intruder  who  ventured  covertly  to 
inspect  them.  The  Rhodians  offered  an  asylum  moreover  to 
the  teachers  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy,  and  to  their  city 
many  of  the  young  patricians  continued  long  to  resort  for  the 
highest  literary  instruction.  But  they  are  still  more  remark- 
able for  the  institution  among  them,  unique,  it  may  be  said, 
in  antiquity,  of  a  regular  poor-law,  which  seems  to  have  been 
long  established;  not,  as  Strabo  remarks,  that  they  were 
democratically  governed,  but  the  aristocracy,  in  the  midst  of 
its  pride  and  power,  wisely  took  this  precaution  to  secure  an 
unfailing  supply  of  efficient  operatives  and  seamen.1 

We  are  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  mode  in  which 
this  system  of  relief  was  conducted  to  decide  whether  it  was 
in  fact  an  instance  of  prudent  generosity,  or  mere-  Autonomous 
ly,  as  in  the  case  of  the  largesses  to  the  Roman  Btates  of  Lycia- 
populace,  a  tribute  exacted  from  contented  industry  for  the 
satisfaction  of  turbulent  idleness.  Allowing,  however,  that 

Sorou  5e  To|ei»/xo  aQfVTOs  airo  rf/s  ycavlat  TOV  Kfpd[j.ov,  Kal   SJfavTos    uirepjSaAe- 
ffQai  fiiKpa,  TO  ff-ra&iov. 

1  Strabo,  xiv.  2.  p.  653.  The  constitution  of  Rhodes,  at  least  at  an  earlier 
period,  is  described  as  a  curious  combination  of  aristocracy  and  democracy. 
See  Cicero,  de  Republ.  iii.  35.  At  a  later  period  again,  Dion  Chrysostom  and 
Aristides  represent  the  constitution  of  Rhodes  as  popular.  Creuzer,  in  loc. 
Ciceron. 


108  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

its  principle  was  sound,  we  cannot  but  remark  how  little  jeal- 
ousy the  Romans  evinced  of  this  example  of  freedom  and  pub- 
lic spirit  Not  only  did  they  suffer  the  autonomy  of  Rhodes 
within  sight  of  their  own  subject  provinces,  but  permitted 
even  in  their  centre  the  existence  of  a  political  confederacy 
of  twenty-three  Lycian  towns,  whose  deputies  met  together  in 
common,  as  the  Greeks  and  the  lonians  had  assembled  in  the 
days  of  their  independence.  From  the  character  of  these 
meetings,  as  well  as  from  the  name  of  the  chief  Lycian  city, 
Xanthus,  we  might  imagine  that  these  autonomous  communi- 
ties were  themselves  of  Hellenic  origin ;  but  the  Greeks  re- 
fused to  acknowledge  the  affinity,  and  insisted  that  they  were 
simply  Carian.  At  all  events,  they  deserved  the  respect  shown 
them  by  the  Romans  for  the  honourable  way  in  which,  though 
a  maritime  people,  they  abstained  from  piracy  in  its  palmiest 
days,  and  Xanthus  at  least,  which  had  been  delivered  by  Bru- 
tus to  pillage,  might  claim  consideration  at  the  hands  of  Au- 
gustus. These  little  states,  however,  had  suffered  so  much 
from  the  exaction  of  the  Roman  generals,  that  even  freedom, 
with  immunity  from  Roman  taxation,  seems  to  have  failed  to 
restore  their  prosperity.1 

From  the  Gulf  of  Pamphylia  to  that  of  Issns  stretched 
the  province  of  Cilicia.    To  this,  since  the  time  of  Pompeius, 
.  not  only  Pamphylia  and  Isauria,  but  also  some 

districts  of  Pisidia  and  Phrygia  had  been  appen- 
ded, Cilicia  was  regarded  by  the  Romans  as  a  very  impor- 
tant possession,  not  for  the  wealth  of  its  inhabitants,  but,  first, 
as  the  region  from  whence  the  pirates  had  issued,  and  within 
which  they  were  still  located  after  their  defeat ;  and,  again, 
as  the  key  of  Syria,  with  which  it  was  connected  by  the  passes 
of  the  Amanus.  Accordingly  we  always  find  it  occupied  by  a 
strong  military  force.  Augustus  claimed  to  administer  it  by 
officers  of  his  own  appointment ;  but  Cyprus,  which  was  at 
first  attached  to  it,  he  afterwards  restored  to  the  senate.* 

1  Strabo,  xiv.  3.  p.  664. 

*  Strabo,  xvii.  3.  p.  840.    A.  W.  Zompt  seems  to  hare  satisfactorily  shown 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  109 

But  though  the  seas  were  cleared  of  pirates,  and  the  harbours 
secured,  the  mountains  of  Cilicia  were  still  invested  by  hordes 
of  robbers ;  and  it  was  in  order  to  keep  these  marauders  in 
check  without  expense  to  the  imperial  treasury  that  the  Ro- 
mans had  permitted  the  existence  on  the  Taurus 

„          .  ,  .    „     .  •  i       i        Vassal  kings 

and  Amanus  of  various  petty  chieftains  with  the  allowed  to  ex- 
title  of  kings.1    In  the  period  of  the  civil  wars 
one  chief  of  superior  craft  or  energy  had  succeeded  in  absorb- 
ing into  his  own  realm  the  possessions  of  his  neighbours, 
and  was  allowed  to  hold,  in  dependence  on  the  republic, 
the  gates  of  Syria  and  Cilicia.    His  name  was  Tarcondimotus ; 
but  when  he  was  slain  on  the  side  of  Antonius  at  Actium,  his 
son  Philopator,  who  claimed  the  succession,  was  displaced  by 
the  conquerors,  and  the  throne  bestowed  upon  a  younger 
brother  of  the  same  name  as  the  father." 

The  disposition  of  affairs  effected  by  the  republic  in  the 
Asiatic  provinces  had  remained,  for  the  most  part,  intact 
through  the  series  of  revolutions  which  had  re-  Their  subser- 
cently  swept  over  the  country.  Neither  Caesar  chief s'Vf  the6 
nor  Brutus  and  Cassius  had  changed  in  any  im-  Eoman  Btate- 
portant  particular  the  administration  of  these  territories. 
Even  Antonius,  whose  sway  had  been  most  arbitrary,  and 
whose  necessities  most  exacting,  had  spared  the  institutions 
of  these  regions,  while  levying  from  them  the  heaviest  contri- 
butions. But  throughout  the  foreign  and  allied  dependencies 
of  the  sovereign  state,  as  far  as  his  hand  could  reach,  he  had 
overthrown  dynasties  and  effaced  political  landmarks,  for  the 
gratification  of  his  caprices,  or  from  lust  of  gold.  Every 
where  thrones  were  to  be  obtained  from  him  for  money,  and 
without  money  the  possession  of  none  was  secure.  The 
vassals  of  the  Roman  people  were  transformed  into  clients  of 
the  triumvir,  and  were  summoned  at  his  call  to  maintain  his 
quarrel  against  his  rival,  and  the  gods  and  people  of  Rome 
herself.  They  obeyed  him  reluctantly,  and  betrayed  him 

that  Cilicia  became  annexed  to  the  proconsulate  of  Syria.  Comment.  Epi- 
graph, ii.  93.  foil. 

1  Strabo,  xir.  4.  p.  676.  *  Dion,  liv.  9. 


HO  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

without  scruple.  But  the  conqueror,  who  had  friends  and 
allies  of  his  own  to  serve,  did  not,  for  the  most  part,  spare 
them  for  this  tardy  service,  and  few,  perhaps,  of  the -whole 
number  of  the  dependent  chiefs  of  Asia  were  allowed  to  retain 
their  authority  on  the  establishment  of  his  power.1 

Difficult,  indeed,  was  the  game  which  these  little  tributa- 
ries were  required  to  play.  The  creatures  of  a  proconsul's 
Amyntas,  king  breath,  and  the  puppets  of  his  caprice,  any  sense 
of  Gaiatia.  of  gratitude  for  favours  conferred  might  well  be 
lost  in  the  sense  of  his  insolence  and  own  degradation.  Their 
power,  and  indeed  existence,  depended  on  their  turning  pre- 
cisely at  the  favourable  moment  in  a  contest  in  which  they 
took  no  interest,  but  in  which  their  services  were  demanded 
by  every  party  in  turn.  Among  the  wariest  of  the  number 
was  Amyntas,  who  had  been  the  minister  and  general  of  king 
Deiotarus.  He  was  sent  by  his  master  to  the  assistance  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius  ;  but  without  waiting  for  the  decision  of 
Philippi,  which  would  have  been  too  late,  he  had  the  sagacity 
to  augur  their  discomfiture  at  an  earlier  period,  and  could 
thus  make  a  merit  of  his  defection.8  Antonius  accordingly 
rewarded  him  with  the  royal  title,  and  gave  him,  upon  the 
death  of  Deiotarus,  which  speedily  followed,  the  greater  part 
of  his  late  master's  possessions.  His  territories  extended  over 
the  whole  of  Gaiatia,  the  tract  between  the  Halys  and  the 
Phasis,  together  with  some  portions  of  Lycaonia  and  Pam- 
phylia.8  Having  once  turned  so  opportunely,  he  resolved  to 
play  the  same  game  again,  and,  watching  the  moment  when 
the  crimes  and  follies  of  Antonius  were  manifestly  hurrying 
him  to  his  ruin,  he  contrived  to  signify  his  desertion  to  Octa- 
vius  just  before  the  battle  of  Actium.4  By  this  second  feat 
he  secured  the  possession  of  his  throne,  which  he 

Annexation  of  .          ,  ,  .  />       i  t  *.      *  fe  i 

his  territory,      continued  to  enjoy,  with  no  further  trial  of  his 
prudence,  till  his  death  in  729,  whereupon  Augus- 

1  Dion,  H.  2.,  excepts  only  Amyntas  and  Archelaus.    But  we  shall  see  im- 
mediately that  there  were  some  others. 

5  Dion,  xlvii.  48.  s  Dion,  xlix.  32. ;  Strabo,  xii.  8.  p.  S47. 

4  Veil.  ii.  84 :  Plut  Anton.  68. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

tus  took  the  greater  part  of  his  dominions,  and  formed  there- 
with the  province  of  Galatia. 

A  similar  good  fortune,  though  on  a  smaller  scale,  at- 
tended the  well-timed  adhesion  to  Octavius  of  Deiotarus  Phi- 
ladelphus.  This  chief  went  over  to  the  west- 

.  a  11  T    •      Deiotarus, 

ern  triumvir  with  Amyntas,  and  was  allowed,  it  king  of  Paphia- 
would  seem,  in  consequence,  to  retain  his  little  g' 
sovereignty  in  a  part  of  Paphlagonia,  which  again,  upon  his 
death,  became  incorporated  in  the  province  of  Galatia.1  The 
same  was  the  fate  of  several  other  petty  chiefs  in  this  district, 
and  of  their  territories.  Another  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  these  favourites  of  fortune  was  Polemo,  the 

n        <-*        -,       -,  •   •  i_  A  •         Polemo,  king 

son  of  a  Greek  rhetorician,  on  whom  Antomus  of  Pontus  and 
had  bestowed  the  kingdom  of  Pontus,  compri- 
sing the  eastern  portion  of  the  ample  region  generally  so 
called,  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  seaboard  of  the 
Euxine,  as  far,  at  least,  as  the  river  Phasis.2  Augustus  con- 
firmed his  title  to  these  dominions,  and  in  728  conferred  upon 
him  the  style  of  friend  and  ally  of  the  Roman  people.  He 
even  added  eventually  to  his  territories  the  kingdom  of  the 
Bosphorus.3  Polemo  himself  was  killed  in  conflict  with  some 
of  his  barbarian  neighbours;  but  his  territories  continued 
long  to  escape  the  gulf  into  which  so  many  Asiatic  sove- 
reignties were  falling,  and  retained  their  nominal  independ- 
ence under  the  sceptre  of  his  widow  Pythodoris.  This 
woman  was  possessed  of  uncommon  abilities,  and  maintained 
herself  on  her  throne  in  the  midst  of  so  many  hostile  or  jeal- 
ous potentates,  by  the  force  of  her  genius  and  the  discreet 
choice  of  her  second  husband.  She  united  her  fortunes  with 
those  of  Archelaus,  another  client  of  Augustus,  whom  An- 
tonius  had  placed  on  the  throne  of  Cappadocia  in  reward  for 
the  complaisance  of  his  beautiful  mother.4  To  this  kingdom, 
which  was  originally  bounded  by  Galatia  and  Lycaonia  on 
the  west,  and  the  line  of  the  Anti-Taurus  on  the  north,  Au- 

1  Strabo,  xii.  3.  p.  562.  *  Strabo,  xi.  2.  p.  499. 

3  Dion,  liii.  25.  liv.  24. ;  Strabo,  xi.  2.  p.  495. 

4  Dion,  xlix.  33. ;  Strabo,  xii.  2.  p.  540. 


112  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

gustus  added  a  portion  of  Cilicia,1  and  Pythodoris  could 
bring  him  a  further  accession  in  the  adjacent  realm  of  the 
Lesser  Armenia.  In  the  centre  of  their  united  dominions 
they  founded  the  city  of  Sebaste  in  honour  of  their  patron, 
and  strenuously  defended  his  frontiers  against  the  formidable 
power  of  the  Parthians." 

In  the  conquest  of  Asia  Minor,  Sulla  and  Lucullus,  Metel- 
lus  and  Servilius,  had  each  borne  a  share ;  but  the  subjuga- 
The  province  ^on  °^  Syria,  the  fairest  gem  of  the  imperial 
of  Syria.  diadem  of  Rome,  was  the  work  of  Pompeius 

alone.  The  reduction  of  Gaul,  it  may  be  said,  was  the  only 
achievement  that  surpassed  it,  as  Caesar  was  the  only  Roman 
who  deserved  to  be  styled  superior  to  the  second  Alexander. 
Syria,  in  its  widest  extent,  comprised  the  whole  tract  of  coun- 
try, ill-defined,  at  least  on  its  eastern  frontier,  which  lay  be- 
tween the  Amanus  and  Euphrates  on  the  north,  and  the  de- 
serts of  Mesopotamia  and  Arabia  to  the  Pelusian  isthmus. 
In  Palestine  and  some  other  outlying  districts,  the  conque- 
ror had  suffered  the  existence  of  vassal  kings ;  but  Syria 
proper,  with  its  wealthy  cities  of  Antioch  and  Damascus, 
Aparnea  and  Emesa,  its  active  and  restless  population,  its 
fanatical  priesthood,  and  above  all  its  frontier  exposed  to 
powerful  and  ambitious  neighbours,  was  too  precarious  a 
possession  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  any  tributary  monarch. 
Accordingly  Pompeius  had  at  once  enrolled  it  among  the 
Roman  provinces,  and  had  demanded  of  the  senate  that  a 
force  of  several  legions  should  be  permanently  quartered  in 
it,  for  the  defence  of  the  most  important  outpost  of  the 
empire.  The  proconsulate  of  Syria  became  the  object  of 
every  inordinate  ambition ;  and  the  possession  of  this  depend- 
ency, it  was  soon  discovered,  was  pregnant  with  far  more 

1  Strabo,  xii.  1.  p.  535. 

*  Cappadocia  on  the  Taurus,  the  original  kingdom  of  Archelaus,  was 
formed  into  a  province  on  his  death,  A  u.  769.  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  42. ;  Strabo, 
xii.  1.  p.  534. ;  Lucan,  iii.  243. : 

"  Venere  feroces 
Cappadoces,  duri  populos  nunc  cultor  Amani." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

danger  than  advantage  to  the  government  at  home.  Caesar 
redressed  the  balance  of  the  East  and  West,  but  it  was  at  the 
expense  of  creating  a  new  army,  and  a  new  general  inimical 
to  the  privileges  of  the  dominant  class.  Meanwhile,  however, 
the  presence  of  the  legions  of  Syria  had  secured  the  safety  of 
the  province  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Parthians, 
amidst  all  the  troubles  of  the  civil  wars,  and  the  terrible 
disasters  of  Crassus  and  Antonius.  Accustomed  to  submis- 
sion, and  trained  to  the  yoke  of  foreign  rulers,  by  the  succes- 
sive dynasties  of  the  Assyrian,  the  Persian,  and  the  Macedo- 
nian, the  natives  bore  the  exactions  of  their  new  masters  with 
equanimity :  nevertheless  Augustus  garrisoned  their  country 
with  a  force  of  four  legions.1  At  the  northern  extremity  of 
this  region  the  little  kingdom  of  Commagene  reached  to  the 
banks  of  the  Euphrates,  and  presented  the  last  vestige  of  the 
magnificent  domain  of  the  Seleucidae.  In  the  year  723  it  was 
ruled  by  a  king  of  the  name  of  Mithridates,  who,  however, 
was  not  himself  a  scion  of  the  Macedonian  dynasty."  Two 
years  later  an  Antiochus  of  Commagene  was  put  to  death,  as 
we  read,  at  Rome.  The  possessor  of  the  throne  from  this 
time  to  the  year  734  is  not  known,  but  at  that  period  Augus- 
tus presented  it  to  another  Mithridates,  who  was  but  a  child.3 
Two  years  before  the  Eastern  journey  of  Augustus,  his 
friend  and  adviser  Agrippa  had  inspected  in  his  behalf  the 
provinces  of  Asia.4  The  politic  Herodes  had  Herodee,  king 
succeeded  in  gaming  the  minister's  favour,  as  of  Judea- 
previously  his  master's,  and  had  received  a  full  confirmation 
of  the  favours  already  bestowed  upon  him.  To  his  kingdom 
of  Judea  were  annexed  the  dominions  of  various  petty  chief- 
tains ;  he  was  allowed  to  choose  his  own  successor  from 
among  the  children  whom  he  had  sent  of  his  own  accord  to 
Rome,  as  pledges  of  his  loyalty.  Few  of  the  vassal  kings  of 

1  Tac.  Ann.  iv.  3.  2  Plut.  Anton.  61. ;  Appian,  B.  C.  v.  10. 

1  Dion,  lii.  43.  liv.  9. ;  Hoeck,  Rom.  Oesch.  i.  370. 

4  In  the  year  731.     Dion,  liii.  32. :  ov  /xeVroi  Kal  is  r^v  2vplcu>  aQtKtro, 
aAA"  (Ti  Hal  /jia\\ov  jUETpia(,W  t/ce?<T€  fjitv  roi/s  viroffTparriyovs  firfft^fv,  UVT&S 

5e  (v  Ae'<r#a>  Stcrpiif 6. 

VOL.  IT. — 8 


114-  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Rome  were  thus  encouraged  to  contemplate  the  prospect  of 
perpetuating  a  dynasty.  On  the  arrival,  however,  of  Au- 
gustus himself,  more  extensive  additions  were 
made  {(This  made  to  his  territories,  in  the  districts  of  Tracho- 
nitis,  Auranitis,  and  Batanea,  which  were  taken 
from  their  tetrarch  Zenodorus,  because  he  leagued  himself 
with  the  Arab  robbers  instead  of  controlling  them.  Phe- 
roras,  a  brother  of  Herodes,  was  raised  to  the  sovereignty  of 
a  portion  of  Persea,  and  Herod  was  himself  guaranteed  by 
special  ordinance  from  the  obnoxious  interference  of  the 
governor  of  Syria.  Such  were  the  brilliant  rewards  he  ob- 
tained for  maintaining  the  police  of  the  Arabian  deserts,  chas- 
tising the  nomade  sheikhs,  and  gradually  enuring  them  to  the 
stern  control  of  civilized  authority.1  On  similar  conditions 
Obodas  held,  as  we  have  seen,  his  sceptre  in  Petra,  and  lam- 
blichus  in  Emesa. 

Before  quitting  the  Eastern  dominions  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire we  must  cast  our  eyes  for  a  moment  on  the  great  empire 
— the  only  rival  empire — which  lay  beyond  their 

The  rival  mon-    „          .         J  _         ,     ..... 

archy  of  Par-  frontier.  In  their  collisions  with  Parthia  the 
Romans  had  been  twice  unfortunate,  and  scanty 
were  the  trophies  they  had  to  set  against  the  overthrow  of  one 
proconsul,  the  flight  of  another,  and  the  loss  of  their  legion- 
ary eagles.  Nevertheless  the  events  which  had  taken  place  in 
the  interval  nearer  home  were  too  tremendous  in  their  char- 
acter, and  their  interest  was  too  absorbing,  to  allow  them  to 
brood  over  these  distant  disasters.  Each  political  chieftain 
had  in  turn  rejoiced  secretly  in  the  discomfiture  of  his  personal 
foe :  the  death  of  Crassus  had  relieved  both  Pompeius  and 
Caesar  from  a  vigilant  rival,  and  the  setting  of  the  sun  of 
Antonius  had  cast  a  double  brightness  on  the  rising  star  of 
Octavius.  The  splendour  and  pretended  glories  of  the  new 
administration  might  continue  to  throw  these  early  misfor- 
tunes into  the  shade :  patriots  who  dared  hardly  think  of  the 
ancient  triumphs  of  the  republic  would  still  less  indulge  in 

1  Joseph.  Antiq.  xv.  1.   10.  IS.;   Sell.  Jud.  i.  20,  21.;   Dion,  liv.  9.; 
Strabo,  xvi.  2.  p.  756. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  H5 

the  recollection  of  her  failures.  Although  in  the  earlier  years 
of  Augustus  the  writings  of  the  day  reflect  often  the  national 
fear  and  hatred  of  the  Parthians,  none  ventured  to  suggest 
the  duty  or  policy  of  chastising  them.  During  the  closing 
struggle  between  the  triumvirs,  both  Media  and  Armenia 
had  been  suffered  to  fall  under  the  tutelage  of  these  formi- 
dable enemies ;  but  the  dissensions  of  the  reigning  family 
had  saved  the  honour  of  the  Romans,  by  inducing  the  rival 
claimants  of  the  throne  to  appeal  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
emperor.1  While  Phraates  was  allowed,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
sit  unmolested  on  his  throne,  his  son,  whom  Tiridates  had 
delivered  up  to  Augustus,  was  kept  in  honourable  confine- 
ment at  Rome,  and  Tiridates  himself  entertained  with  respect 
and  favour  in  Syria.  This  state  of  things  subsisted  for  seve- 
ral years,  during  which  the  rivals,  thus  kept  apart,  continued 
secretly  to  countermine  each  other.  Meanwhile  Rome  grew 
united  and  stronger :  Parthia  was  weakened  by  its  dissensions. 
In  the  year  731  the  claimants  for  the  throne  condescended 
once  more  to  appeal  to  the  common  enemy  of  their  nation. 
On  this  great  occasion  the  demeanour  of  Augustus  was  emi- 
nently patriotic  and  national.  He  referred  their  claims  to  the 
consideration  of  the  senate,  and  himself  suggested  that  the 
opportunity  had  now  arrived  for  satisfying  the  honour  of 
the  country,  and  effacing  the  memorials  of  her  discomfiture.2 
While  no  decision  was  yet  made  respecting  the  settlement  of 
the  throne,  the  standards  and  the  captives  of  Carrha3  were 
proudly  reclaimed,  as  the  first  condition  of  arbitration.  The 
Parthian  monarch  temporized,  and  on  the  part  of  the  Roman 
no  great  anxiety  was  shown  to  hasten  their  reco-  A  v  734 
very.  At  last,  in  the  year  734,  Augustus,  then  en-  B<  c<  20- 
gaged  in  the  settlement  of  the  affairs  of  Asia,  repeated  in  loud- 
er tones  his  demands  for  satisfaction.  The  tardy  restoration 
was  quickened  by  the  advance  of  Tiberius  Nero,  the  emperor's 
step-son,  into  Armenia,  at  the  head  of  a  military  force,  which 
might  easily  be  turned  against  the  refractory  Parthian.3  The 

1  Dion,  li.  18. ;  Justin,  xlii.  6.    See  above,  ch.  xxix.  "  Dion,  liii.  33. 

3  Suet.  Tib.  9.     The  line  of  Horace,  Epist.  i.  12.  26.,  "  Jus  imperiumque 


116  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Restoration  of  s*an<lards  were  restored,  or  rather,  perhaps,  the 
the  standards  bronze  eagles  which  surmounted  them — the  cher- 

of  Crassue. 

ished  object  of  the  soldier's  affection  and  some- 
times of  his  worship — which  he  was  bound  by  the  military 
sacrament  never  to  desert.  After  an  interval  of  more  than 
thirty  years  few  of  the  captives  survived,  and  not  many  of 
these  would  care  to  relinquish  their  new  ties  and  occupations 
for  the  forgotten  honours  of  their  youth.  Phraates  himself,  if 
we  may  trust  the  testimony  of  the  imperial  medals,  performed 
homage  at  the  feet  of  the  emperor's  representative,  and  recei- 
ved the  crown  from  his  hands.  The  long-lost  trophies  were 
brought  by  Tiberius  to  his  father,  and  by  him  transmitted  to 
Rome,  where  they  were  greeted  with  fervent  acclamations, 
and  deposited  in  the  temple  of  Mars  the  Avenger.1  This 
splendid  edifice,  which  Augustus  had  vowed  before  the 
battle  of  Philippi,  in  which  he  was  about  to  take  vengeance 
on  his  father's  murderers,  was  thus  rendered  doubly  worthy 
of  its  title,  as  a  monument  of  national  retribution.  The 
poets  celebrated  this  recovery  as  something  greater  than  a 
victory  or  a  triumph.  Augustus,  however,  in  the  monu- 
mental record  he  has  left  us  of  his  own  exploits,  speaks  of  it 
with  dignity  and  moderation.2 

Phraates  Caesaris  accepit  genibus  minor,"  alludes  to  the  coins  struck  at  thig 
period,  on  which  we  see  the  figure  of  a  trousered  Parthian  presenting  the 
emperor  with  a  standard,  or,  in  some  cases,  a  bow.  Eckhel,  Doctr.  Numm.  vi. 
96.  Comp.  Ovid.  Fast.  T.  693. :  "  Parthe,  refers  aquilas,  victos  quoque  por- 
rigifl  arcus."  Propert.  iii.  4. 17. :  "  Tela  fugacis  equi  et  braccati  militis  arcus." 

1  Bunsen,  Rom,  iii.  281.,  after  Piale,  maintains  that  the  trophies  were  sus- 
pended, not  in  the  temple  of  Mars  Ultor  in  the  forum  of  Augustus,  but  in  a 
chapel  erected  to  that  deity  in  the  Capitol,  on  the  ground  that  the  medals  re- 
present it  as  a  small  circular  building,  whereas  the  temple  was  ample  in  size 
and  of  the  ordinary  shape.  Becker  takes  the  same  view.  Hoeck  supposes 
that  the  trophies  were  first  placed  in  the  smaller  shrine,  and  removed  at  a  later 
period  to  the  temple,  which  was  not  actually  dedicated  upon  completion  till 
752.  But  surely  the  representation  of  the  temple  on  the  medal  is  merely  con- 
ventional. Dion,  who  places  the  temple  itself  on  the  Capitol,  may  be  cor- 
rected by  an  easy  transposition.  The  words  of  Augustus  himself  are :  "Eaau- 
tem  signa  in  penetrali  quod  est  in  tempi o  Martis  Ultoris  reposui."  Mon.  Ancyr. 
col.  5. 

*  Mon.  Ancyr.  5. :  "  Parthostrium  eiercituum  Romanorum  spolia  et  signa 


TINDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

The  history  of  Armenia,  during  the  few  years  preceding, 
is  equally  obscure  with  that  of  Parthia.  Antonius  had  with- 
drawn from  it  ingloriously  in  721,  and  Artaxias, 

J  Armenia. 

tne  son  or  the  unfortunate  Artavasdes,  being 
placed  on  his  father's  throne,  had  avenged  the  injuries  of  his 
family  by  murdering  all  the  Romans  in  his  dominions.  His 
next  resource  was  to  throw  himself  upon  the  protection  of  the 
Parthians.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  made  some  friendly 
overtures  to  Octavius  after  the  death  of  Antonius,  which  the 
victorious  triumvir  thought  fit  to  dignify  with  the  name  of  sub- 
mission.1 On  the  murder  of  Artaxias  soon  after  by  his  own 
subjects,  Augustus  commissioned  Tiberius  to  place  his  brother 
Tigranes  on  the  throne,  nor  did  the  Parthians,  as  we  have 
seen,  venture  to  make  any  opposition.  Armenia,  we  may 
conclude,  fell  under  the  protection  of  the  empire,  an  event 
which  the  imperial  medals  commemorate  with  their  usual 
magniloquence.2  Whatever,  however,  was  the  glory  of  the 
exploit,  Tiberius,  it  was  remarked,  claimed  it  all  as  his  own, 
and  the  prodigies  which  marked  his  progress  over  the  field 
of  Philippi  stimulated  his  young  ambition  with  visions  of 
future  empire.8 

After  witnessing  the  completion  of  these  important  affairs 
Augustus  returned,  towards  the  end  of  734,  to  his  winter 

quarters  at  Samos,  where  he  bestowed  the  boon  of 

Augustus  re- 
autonomy  on  the  hosts  by  whom  he  had  been  so  turns  togamos. 

frequently  entertained.    He  watched,  as  we  have 

seen,  from  this  distant  retreat  the  agitation  of  public  feeling 

restituere  mihi,  supplicesque  amicitiam  pop.  Rom.  petere  coegi."  The  three 
disasters  may  include,  perhaps,  besides  the  defeats  of  701  and  719,  the  in- 
glorious retreat  of  Antonius  from  the  Araxesin  721.  Dion,  xlix.  44. 

1  Eckhel,  Doct.  Numm,  vi.  82. :  "  Caesar  Divi  f.  Armenia  recepta."  (A.  u. 
725.) 

2  Eckhel,  vi.  98.:  "Augustus  Armenia  capta."      Comp.  Dion,  li.  16.,  liv. 
9. ;  Veil.  ii.  94. 

'  Dion,  liv.  9. :  firftSrj  Trpot  rovs  &i\iirirovs  uitra!  irpofffKavvovri  &6pv/3os  re 
ris  4it  rov  TTJS  ndxns  XuP>io">  &>s  Ka.1  etc  crrparoirioov  T)Kovff(>T),  xal  irvp  ex  ruv 
Pupum,  T<av  vir&  rov  'Avrtaviov  iv  rip  ratppev/jiari  iopvBfvruv,  avr6p.aro 
4*6  •  T»j8e'pi<K  pev  8^  tit  rovrwv  eyavpovro. 


118  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

at  Rome,  where  each  ensuing  consular  election  had  called 
forth  an  ungovernable  spirit  of  turbulence  ;  and  the  eyes  of  all 
sober  citizens  were  turned  more  and  more  anxiously  towards 
him,  as  the  man  who  could  alone  restore  tranquillity  and 
guarantee  its  continuance.  Still,  however,  while  affairs 
seemed  not  yet  ripe  for  his  august  interference,  the  emperor 
persisted  in  holding  his  court  at  Samos,  transacting  business 
there  through  the  winter,  and  receiving  the  homage  of  long 
trains  of  admirers  from  the  remotest  parts  of  India  and  Scy- 
thia.  The  envoys  of  Pandion  and  Porus,  Indian  kings,  pro- 
fessed to  have  been  four  years  on  their  travels  westward,  and 
apologized  for  the  diminished  retinue  with  which  they  ap- 
proached his  presence  by  the  losses  their  number  had  sus- 
tained through  fatigue,  or  in  the  course  of  nature.1  They 
brought  presents  of  precious  stones,  and  spices,  and  animals 
hitherto  unknown  to  Europe.  The  Romans,  says  Dion,  had 
never  before  seen  a  tiger ;  nor,  he  believes,  had  the  Greeks 
either.4  They  presented  him  also  with  a  man  born  without 
arms,  but  who  had  learnt  to  blow  the  trumpet,  to  draw  the 
bow,  and  dart  the  lance  by  means  of  his  toes ;  so  at  least, 
says  the  historian,  I  am  told,  though  I  see  not  myself  how  it 
be  possible.  But  the  most  remarkable  part  of  this  embassy 
was  the  self-immolation  of  an  Indian  sage,  whose  name  per- 
haps was  Zarmanochanus,  who  followed  the  court  of  Au- 
gustus to  Athens,  was  there  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
Ceres,  and  then,  declaring  that  having  lived  so  long  in  per- 
fect content  he  would  not  expose  himself  to  the  chances  of  a 
reverse,  burnt  himself  publicly,  according  to  the  approved 
custom  of  the  wise  men  of  his  country.3 

I  Dion,  liv.  9.  ;  Strabo,  xv.  1.  p.  720. 

II  Comp.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  viii.  25. :  "  Q.  Tuberone,  Fabio  Max.  Coss.  Thea- 
tri  Marcelli  dedicatione,  tigrin  primus  omnium  Romae  ostendit  (Augustus)  in 
cavea  mansuefactum  (A.  u.  743)."     This  animal  was  probably  the  royal  Ben- 
gal tiger,  which  may  have  been  unknown  to  the  Romans.     They  speak  so  fre- 
quently of  the  Armenian  and  Hyrcanian  tigers,  that  I  can  hardly  suppose  they 
were  unacquainted  with  the  inferior  species. 

8  Dion,  Strabo,  I.  c.    Comp.  Lucan,  iii.  241. : 

"  Proh  quanta  est  gloria  genti 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  119 

At  Athens  the  proconsul  slowly  returning  was  met  by 
accounts  from  Rome  which  determined  him  at  last  to  yield 
to  the  importunate  solicitations  addressed  to  him  -n^  pr0yince 
from  various  quarters,  and  assume  the  direct  ofAchaia- 
nomination  of  the  consuls  to  be  elected  by  the  people.  Ac- 
cordingly our  review  of  the  long  progress  he  had  made 
through  almost  every  region  of  the  empire  here  comes  to  its 
conclusion ;  but  a  few  words  are  still  wanted  to  complete 
our  survey  of  his  dominions.  The  first  province  formally  con- 
stituted beyond  the  Adriatic  was  Macedonia ;  but  the  whole 
extent  of  Greece  Proper,  or  Achaia  as  it  was  denominated 
by  the  Romans,  together  with  the  islands  around  its  coast, 
had  been  reduced  under  their  sway  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years,  though  the  nature  of  its  government  was  not  perhaps 
very  accurately  defined.  It  is  probable  that  Achaia  was  not 
made  a  province  before  Julius  Caesar,  nor  even  then  is  it  easy 
to  determine  from  the  confused  statement  of  the  geographer 
Strabo  exactly  what  its  limits  were.1  It  is  still  a  question 
whether,  according  to  the  general  opinion,  Thessaly,  -ZEto- 
lia,  Acarnania,  and  certain  parts  of  Epirus  were  included  in 
Achaia,  or  belonged  more  properly  to  Macedonia.  Both 
those  provinces  were  surrendered  by  Augustus  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  senate  ;  and  such  being  the  case,  it  seems  not  im- 
possible that  the  limits  between  them  were  either  not  accu- 
rately defined  or  varied  from  time  to  tune.2  They  both  con- 

Injecisse  manum  fatis,  vitaque  repletos 

Quod  superest  donasse  Deis." 

Calanus  had  made  a  similar  exhibition  before  Alexander ;  but  he  was  old 
and  infirm.  See  Arrian,  Exp.  Alex.  vii.  3.  The  name  of  Zarmanochanus  is 
spelt  in  various  ways.  I  retain  this  orthography  from  its  similarity  to  other 
Indian  names  as  Grecized,  such  as  Forticanus,  Musicanus,  Oxycanus,  Assaca- 
nus.  The  philosopher  came  from  Bargosa  (Baroche)  on  the  western  coast  of 
India. 

1  Becker  (Marquardt),  Jtcem.  Alterth.  iii.  1.  121.,  refers  to  a  recent  treatise 
by  C.  F.  Hermann,  in  which  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  this  organization 
did  not  take  place  till  the  time  of  Augustus.    He  inclines  however  himself  to 
an  earlier  date. 

2  Achaia  was  made  senatorial  in  727,  again  resumed,  in  conjunction  with 
Macedonia,  as  imperial,  in  739.     At  a  later  period  it  was  again  transferred  to 
the  senate  by  the  emperor  Claudius.    Becker,  p.  128. 


120  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

tinued  to  enjoy  uninterrupted  tranquillity ;  and  if  the  popula- 
tion of  Achaia  dwindled  with  the  decay  of  commerce  and  the 
loss  of  independence,  the  constant  resort  thither  from  all  parts 
of  the  world  of  the  curious  in  antiquities  and  learning,  the 
admirers  of  its  historic  glory,  and  believers  in  the  inspiration 
of  its  hallowed  soil,  continued  to  maintain  at  least  a  brilliant 
reflection  of  its  ancient  wealth  and  splendour.  The  legions 
which  had  recently  controlled  Macedonia  were  removed  to 
the  turbulent  frontier  of  Thrace,  Mcesia,  and  Pannonia. 

The  district  of  Illyricum,  which  Caesar  had  held  together 
with  both  the  Gauls,  was  confined  in  his  time  to  a  narrow 
strip  of  land  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic, 
from  the  Istrian  peninsula  to  the  river  Drilon,  a 
rude  and  barren  tract,  as  it  has  ever  been,  but  important  in  a 
military  sense,  as  the  outwork  of  the  great  central  citadel 
of  Italy.  The  Romans  in  this  region  had  been  brought,  in 
the  usual  course,  into  more  and  more  frequent  collision  with 
the  half-reclaimed  natives  themselves,  and  with  their  wholly 
barbarous  neighbours,  the  Dalmatians,  lapodes,  and  Panno- 
nians.  Augustus  himself,  with  his  lieutenants  Pollio  and 
Agrippa,  had  made  Illyricum  a  field  for  the  martial  training 
of  his  fresh  conscripts.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  the  prov- 
ince assumed  grander  dimensions,  the  Dalmatians  were 
incorporated  in  it,  the  lapodes  were  subjugated  on  the  fall 
of  their  fortress  Metulum,  and  the  Roman  arms  were  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  Siscia,  a  fastness  of  the  Pannonians  on  the 
waters  of  the  Save.  For  a  moment  Augustus  seems  to  have 
fancied  his  work  there  accomplished,  and  to  have  offered  the 
pacified  province  to  the  administration  of  the  senate  ;  but  on 
the  occurrence  of  disturbances  within,  and  threats  of  aggres- 
sion from  without,  he  renounced  this  intention  as  premature, 
and  appointed  two  legions,  under  a  commander  of  his  own 
choice,  to  watch  over  its  security.  But  events  of  considerable 
gravity  and  importance,  which  presently  occurred  in  these 
regions,  will  again  draw  our  attention  to  the  Save,  and  even 
to  the  Danube,  to  Rhaetia  and  Vindelicia,  to  Noricum  and 
Pannonia. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

So  far  and  wide,  says  an  historian  under  the  empire,  did 
the  Romans  carry  their  arms  around  the  circuit  of  the  terres- 
trial globe,  that  the  student  of  their  affairs  may 
trace  therein  the  fortunes,  not  of  a  single  nation, 
but  of  all  mankind.1  And  so  this  faint  outline  of  their  politi- 
cal relations,  reduced  within  the  limits  of  a  single  chapter, 
has  brought  us  in  contact  with  the  mines  of  Asturia  and  the 
looms  of  India,  the  painted  Britons,  and  the  sunburnt  Ethio- 
pians, the  languid  decrepitude  of  Greece,  and  the  precocious 
aspirations  of  Gaul  and  Spain.  All  these  various  and  discor- 
dant nationalities  were  bound  together  by  the  moral  senti- 
ment of  a  common  dependence  on  a  stronger,  an  abler,  and  a 
wiser  people  than  themselves,  who  swayed  them,  from  the 
sacred  soil  of  Italy,  the  centre  of  their  common  universe,  the 
heart  of  their  whole  animated  system.  This  moral  connexion 
was  represented  outwardly  to  the  eye  by  the  long  lines  of 
military  road,  branching  from  the  centre  of  Italy  herself,  from 
the  golden  milestone  in  the  forum  at  Rome.2  Within  the 
bounds  of  Italy  indeed,  the  desolation  of  the  social  war,  the 
massacres  of  Marius  and  Sulla,  the  plantation  of  colonies, 
many  times  repeated,  had  tended  to  obliterate  every  national 
distinction,  and  to  assimilate  the  population  of  the  whole 
peninsula  to  a  single  type.  The  same  process  which  was 
in  rapid  progress  throughout  the  provinces,  was  already 
almost  consummated  in  the  sovereign  territory.  The  ground 
was  cleared  for  the  completion  of  the  work  of  fusion,  and  in 
Augustus  the  man  was  found  who  had  the  skill  and  energy  to 
effect  it.  From  an  early  period  the  name  of  Italy  had  been 
popularly  attached  to  the  whole  region  south  of  the  Alps, 
though  politically  it  had  been  divided  into  Gallia  Cisal- 
pina  in  the  north,  and  Italia  Proper  in  the  south.3  Possibly 

1  Florus,  procem.  lib.  i. :  "  Ita  late  ubique  per  orbem  ten-arum  arma  circum- 
tulit,  ut  qui  res  ejus  legunt,  nonimius  populi,  sed  generis  human!  fata  discant." 

1  Hoeck,  Rom.  Gesch.  i.  386.  The  "  milliare  aureum,"  it  may  be  observed, 
was  not  properly  a  milestone,  though  popularly  so  denominated.  The  roads 
might  be  said  to  commence  at  the  forum,  but  the  measured  miles  began  not  at 
the  centre,  but  at  the  gates  of  the  city. 

3  Polybius,  ii.  14.,  speaks  of  Italy  as  the  whole  region  within  the  Alps ; 


122  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

the  popular  use  of  this  common  name  was  a  tradition  from 
times  anterior  to  the  first  Gallic  invasion.  But  Italy  within 
the  Rubicon  had  become  entirely  Roman,  and  recently  the 
Gauls  also  on  either  side  the  Po  had  received  the  franchise 
of  the  City.  There  remained,  therefore,  no  substantial  dis- 
tinction between  any  portions  of  the  whole  country,  and 
Augustus  acted  in  harmony  with  the  instinct  of  the  times 
when  he  formally  pronounced  the  Var  the  boundary  of  Italy 
and  Gaul.1  This  favoured  tract  was  exempted  from  the 
sway  of  a  proconsul,  whose  imperium  in  the  provinces  was  a 
symbol  of  conquest  and  domination.  The  commander  of  an 
army  so  near  to  Rome  might  have  imperilled  the  security  of 
the  emperor.  It  was  governed  by  the  civil  officers  of  its  own 
colonies  and  municipalities  ;  and  was  divided  for  administra- 
tive purposes  into  eleven  regions  or  circles.8  With  the  res- 
pective limits  of  these  we  are  not  accurately  acquainted,  but 
we  may  presume  they  regarded  in  little  more  than  name  the 
old  and  almost  forgotten  landmarks  of  communities  and 
races.8 

In  our  review  of  the  provinces  of  the  empire  the  two  con- 
siderable islands  of  Sardinia  and  Corsica  have  well  nigh 
Sardinia  and  escaped  our  notice.  Isolated  in  their  position, 
Corsica.  ^gy  Wer6)  fa  fact}  no^  ]ess  exceptional  in  their 


but,  as  a  Greek,  his  use  of  such  terms  may  be  geographical  rather  than  politi- 
cal. 

1  Strabo,  v.  1.  ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  iii.  6.  ;  Lucan,  i.  404.     Nicaea,  lying  east 
of  the  Var,  is  assigned  by  Pliny  and  Ptolemy  to  Italy.     Mela,  however,  and 
Stephanus  give  it  to  Gaul,  as  a  Massilian  colony.     Ukert,  ii.  2.  431. 

2  The  eleven  regions  of  Italy  were  Transpadana,  Yenetia,  Liguria,  Cispa- 
dana,  Etruria,  Umbria,  Picenum,  Samnium,  Campania,  Lucania,  and  Apulia. 
Becker,  p.  61.,  ventures  to  assign  the  exact  limits  of  each. 

8  Ancient  writers  have  illustrated  the  shape  of  Italy  by  various  fanciful 
similitudes.  Polybius  likened  it  to  a  mathematical  triangle,  Pliny  to  an  elon- 
gated oak-leaf.  Lucan  more  judiciously  fixes  his  eye  on  the  dorsal  ridge  of 
the  mountains  that  permeate  it  ;  and  this,  if  we  were  to  indulge  in  such  fan- 
cies as  the  foregoing,  we  might  compare  to  the  sinuosities  of  a  monstrous  ser- 
pent, whose  head  is  in  Istria,  whose  arched  and  crested  neck  is  represented  by 
the  Alps,  his  body  by  the  Apennines,  and  his  tail  by  the  waving  curve  of  Lu- 
cania and  Bruttium. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  123 

character.  Near  as  they  were  to  the  coast  of  the  continent, 
— the  latter  being  within  sight  of  Populonium  and  even 
of  Liguria, — to  the  great  Etruscan  cities  of  antiquity,  and 
even  to  Rome  herself,  these  islands  enjoyed  none  of  the 
fruits  of  Italian  civilization,  and  remained,  in  the  time  of 
Augustus,  as  they  have  continued  ever  since,  dark  spots  of 
barbarism  on  the  skirts  of  opulence  and  refinement.  The 
northern  island,  indeed,  was  rugged  and  wild,  and  covered 
with  impenetrable  forests,  and  even  under  the  empire  was 
made  a  hunting  field  for  slaves  of  the  lowest  and  rudest  char- 
acter. Sardinia,  more  inviting  in  appearance,  and  adapted 
for  the  production  of  grain,  which  it  sent  in  large  quantities 
to  Italy,  was  afflicted  by  a  pestilential  miasma  which  its  pos- 
sessors had  never  science  or  energy  to  overcome.  Both  were 
placed  under  the  rule  of  the  senate,  as  secure,  and,  at  least 
from  their  weakness,  peaceable.  They  were  used  as  places 
of  banishment  for  political  exiles :  the  philosopher  Seneca 
passed  eight  years  of  solitude  and  reflection  in  the  mountains 
of  Corsica ; 1  and  when  four  thousand  freedmen  of  Rome, 
infected  with  the  superstition  of  the  Jews,  were  transported  to 
Sardinia,  it  was  observed  that  if  they  all  perished  of  the  fever 
of  the  country  the  loss  would  be  of  little  importance.3 

1  Senec.  Cons,  ad  Helv.  6. 

8  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  86. :  "  Si  ob  gravitatem  coeli  interissent  vile  damnum." 


124:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 


CHAPTER  XXXY. 


THE  &ESAREAN  FAMILY.  -  JULIA,  DAUGHTER  OF  AUGUSTUS,  BY  SCRIBONIA,  MAR- 
RIED TO  MARCELLUS,  SON  OF  OCTATIA.  -  HIGH  PROMISE  AND  EARLY  DEATH 
OP  MARCELLUS.  -  JULIA  UNITED  TO  AGRIPPA.  -  AUGUSTUS  RECEIVES  THE 
TRIBUNITIAN  AND  THE  CONSULAR  POWERS.  -  AGRIPPA  IS  RAISED  TO  A  PAR- 
TICIPATION IN  THE  FORMER.  -  PREFECTURE  OF  MANNERS.  -  REVISION  OF  THE 
SENATE.  -  SECULAR  GAMES.  -  PREFECTURE  OF  THE  CITY.  -  CONDUCT  AND 
CHARACTER  OF  MAECENAS.  -  AUGUSTUS  IN  GAUL,  AND  AGRIPPA  IN  THE  EAST. 
-  CONQUEST  OF  RH.STIA  AND  VINDELICIA  BY  TIBERIUS  AND  DRUSUS,  STEP- 
SONS OF  AUGUSTUS.  —  TIBERIUS  CONSUL  IN  741.  —  AUGUSTUS  AND  AGRIPPA 
RETURN  TO  ROME.  -  AUGUSTUS  CHIEF  PONTIFF.  -  CAMPAIGN  OF  AGRIPPA 
AGAINST  THE  PANNONIANS.  -  HIS  ILLNESS  AND  DEATH.  -  CHARACTER  OF 
AGRIPPA.  A.  U.  729-742.  B.  C.  25-12. 


importance  which  began,  even  from  their  tenderest 
JL  years,  to  attach  to  the  members  of  the  imperial  family, 
attested  from  an  early  period  the  direction  of  the  revolution 
The  Csesarean  which  was  in  progress.  It  was  at  the  commence- 
fln^nce  ofLi-  ment  °^  tne  year  /J'16  t*iat  Augustus  married 
via-  Livia,  the  last  of  the  four  consorts  with  whom, 

in  his  brief  career,  he  had  already  connected  himself.  Livia 
was  at  this  time  extremely  young,  but  she  had  borne  one  son 
to  her  first  husband  Tiberius,  four  years  before,  and  was 
already  six  months  with  child  when  led  to  his  home  by  her 
second.  She  was  again  delivered  of  a  male  child  hi  due  sea- 
son, which  was  acknowledged  equally  with  its  elder  brother 
by  Tiberius,  though  the  ardour  of  her  lover's  passion,  and 
the  fact  that  her  husband  had  been  compelled  to  resign  her 
to  him,  gave  rise  to  a  suspicion  that  the  child  was  really  the 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  125 

offspring  of  Augustus  himself.1  However  this  might  be,  the 
reputed  father,  who  had  acquiesced  with  courtier-like  facility 
in  the  loss  of  his  wife,  continued  on  the  best  terms  with  his 
successor,  and  at  his  death,  four  years  afterwards,  recom- 
mended both  the  children  to  his  guardianship.  Livia  herself, 
the  sport  of  these  caprices,  was  even  at  the  date  of  her  second 
marriage  little  more  than  a  child.  It  is  hardly  credible  that 
she  was  only  twelve  years  of  age  at  the  birth  of  her  eldest 
son  Tiberius,  but  at  latest  she  was  not  more  than  twenty 
when  she  became  the  consort  of  Octavius.8  But  while  her 
personal  charms  were  thus  in  their  first  bloom,  her  under- 
standing was,  perhaps,  already  mature.  She  was  a  daughter 
of  the  Claudian  house,  the  pride  and  abilities  of  which  were 
the  common  inheritance  of  both  males  and  females.3  She  had 
been  united  for  four  years  to  a  man  of  eminence,  under  guid- 
ance of  whose  experience  she  had  shared  the  vicissitudes  of 
civil  war,  and  had  fled  with  him  before  her  future  husband 
on  the  failure  of  the  enterprise  of  Perusia.  The  facility  with 
which  she  had  been  transferred  from  the  guardianship  of  one 
political  chief  to  that  of  another  might  give  her  an  impressive 
lesson  on  the  instability  of  female  influence.  In  her  second 
home  she  directed  all  her  arts  to  securing  her  position,  and 
became,  perhaps,  in  no  long  course  of  time,  as  consummate  a 
dissembler  and  intriguer  as  Octavius  himself.  While,  indeed, 
she  seconded  him  in  his  efforts  to  cajole  the  Roman  people, 
she  was  engaged,  not  less  successfully,  in  cajoling  him.  Her 
elegant  manners,  in  which  she  was  reputed  to  exceed  the 
narrow  limits  allowed  by  fashion  and  opinion  to  the  Roman 

1  Suetonius,  Claud.  1. :  "Drusum Livia,  quum  Augusto  gravida 

nupsisset,  intra  mensem  tertium  peperit ;  fuitque  suspicio,  ex  vitrico  per  adul- 
terii  consuetudinem  procreatum.  Statim  certe  vulgatus  est  versus :  To«  fitrv- 
Xovffi  Kai  Tpinriva  iraiSi'a."  Compare  Suetonius,  Oct.  62.,  lib.  4. ;  Dion,  xlviii. 
44. 

J  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  xiv.  8.)  places  her  birth  A.  u.  700 ;  Dion  (Iviii.  2.)  in 
696. 

3  Livia  was  daughter  of  M.  Livius  Drusus  Claudianus,  a  Claudius  adopted 
into  the  Livian  gens.  Her  children  were  accordingly  Claudii  by  actual  de- 
scent on  both  sides. 


126  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

matrons,  proved  no  less  fascinating  to  him  than  her  beauty.1 
Her  intellect  was  undoubtedly  of  a  high  order,  and,  when  her 
personal  charms  failed  to  enchain  his  roving  inclinations,  she 
was  content  with  the  influence  she  still  continued  to  exercise 
over  his  understanding.2  While  she  connived  at  his  amuse- 
ments she  became  the  confidante  of  his  policy,  and  the  sway 
she  acquired  over  him  in  the  first  transports  of  courtship  she 
retained  without  change  or  interruption  to  the  day  of  his 
death.  But  Livia  was  denied  the  good  fortune  of  bearing 
her  husband  a  child ;  and  there  were  objects  still  nearer  to  his 
natural  affections  than  her  offspring  by  another  man,  though 
bred  up  under  his  own  eye  and  guardianship.3 

Scribonia,  during  the  short  time  she  had  been  permitted 
to  share  the  home  of  the  triumvir,  had  proved  her  fertility  by 
the  birth  of  one  daughter,  and  might,  perhaps,  have  sur- 
rounded the  emperor's  throne  with  a  numerous  progeny  of 
sons.  From  this  blessing,  however,  in  which  his  ambition 
Julia,  daughter  was  so  deeply  interested,  he  excluded  himself 
byitc"fbonui'  ^7  ^s  wanton  repudiation  of  her.  When  the 
Marcelfue0  eon  ProsPect  of  having  heirs  by  Livia  began  to  fail, 
of  octavia.  ^he  daughter  of  Scribonia,  to  whom  he  had  given 
the  name  of  Julia,  acquired  the  ascendant  in  his  affections.4 
But  a  woman  could  have  no  political  position  in  Rome  :  the 
father  must  be  content  to  transfer  to  the  son-in-law  of  his 
choice  the  interest  he  felt  in  his  own  offspring.  It  was  the 
natural  policy  of  Augustus,  in  order  to  avoid  domestic  jeal- 


1  Tac.  Ann.  v.  1. :  "  Sanctitate  domus  priscum  ad  morem,  comis  ultra 
quam  antiquis  foeminis  probatum." 

8  Suet.  Oct.  71.    Tacitus  calls  her  "  uxor  facilis." 

3  In  the  hope  of  having  sons  of  his  own,  and  when  this  hope  failed,  for  the 
sake  of  his  grandsons  by  Julia,  Augustus  refrained  from  formally  adopting  the 
young  Neros.     Tiberius,  as  we  shall  see,  acquired  adoption  at  a  much  later 
period.     Suet.  Oct.  65.,  Tib.  15. 

4  Julia,  the  daughter  of  Augustus  by  Scribonia,  was  born  in  the  year  716, 
and  her  mother  received  her  bill  of  divorcement  the  same  day.     Dion,  xlviii. 
34. :   T9>   5'   erfi,  tv  $  AovKi6s  tf  Mapxior  Kal  Tcu'oy  2a/3?yos  virdrtvarav,  .  .  .  <J 
Kdiffap  .  •  •  ^5ij  Kal  TTJS  Aioufas  epav  tfpxero,  Kal  5io  rovro  Kal  T^V  SKpt&ievtav 
TtKovffdv  01  frvydrpiov  aireW/utf/aTo  avO'fip.tpov. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  127 

ousies,  to  seek  a  husband  for  his  child  within  the  sphere  of 
his  own  family,  and  in  Marcellus,  the  son  of  his  sister  Oc- 
tavia,  he  found  one  both  suitable  in  years  and  promising 
in  disposition.  He  had  shown  strong  marks  of  affection 
for  his  sister,  whose  force  of  character,  together  with  a  su- 
periority of  two  years  in  age,  had  exercised  great  influence 
over  him.  For  her  sake  he  had  spared  the  lives  of  the  spu- 
rious children  of  Cleopatra,  and  had  continued  to  treat  with 
the  consideration  due  to  their  rank  those  she  had  herself 
borne  to  his  rival.  But  she  had  had  a  son  and  daughter  also 
by  an  earlier  marriage,  and  these  had  on  every  account  a 
prior  claim  to  his  regard.  On  his  return  from  Egypt  he 
united  Marcella,  just  then  of  marriageable  age,  to  his  friend 
Agrippa ;  but  for  the  young  Marcellus  he  destined  at  an  early 
date  the  hand  of  his  beloved  Julia.  In  the  year  A  v  729 
729  the  one  had  completed  only  seventeen,  the  B-  c- 25- 
other  not  more  than  fourteen  years  of  age.  But  the  weakness 
of  his  own  health,  lately  shaken  by  a  dangerous  sickness, 
urged  him  to  hasten  an  union  to  which  he  looked  for  the 
perpetuation  of  his  family,  and  the  fortunes  so  wonderfully 
linked  with  it ;  and  being  himself  still  detained  beyond  the 
sea,  he  deputed  Agrippa  to  conduct  the  ceremonial.  Au- 
gustus had  already  raised  the  partner  in  his  victories  to  an 
elevation  at  which  it  was  scarcely  prudent  to  set  any  limit 
to  his  ambitious  aspirations.  The  successive  consulships  to 
which  he  had  been  advanced  in  725  and  726,  were  regarded 
by  the  Romans  as  an  indication  that  he  had  outstepped  the 
sphere  of  a  private  citizen.  In  his  Spanish  campaigns  Au- 
gustus had  divided  with  him  the  command  of  the  army,  and 
shared  the  prastorian  tent.  In  729,  when  his  dwelling  was 
consumed  by  an  accidental  fire,  he  was  invited  to  take  up  his 
residence  in  the  emperor's  mansion  on  the  Palatine,  which  was 
already  beginning  to  assume  the  name  and  character  of  the 
Palace.1  And  now,  when  the  daughter  of  the  emperor  was 
about  to  be  given  in  marriage,  he  was  summoned  to  take  the 
place,  not  indeed  of  the  bridegroom,  which,  with  its  pledge 

1  Dion,  liii.  1.  27. 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  favour  and  prospect  of  inheritance,  he  might  perhaps  have 
justly  demanded,  but  of  the  father  of  the  bride.  While  he 
had  served  his  patron  by  land  and  sea,  in  peace  and  in  war, 
with  signal  fidelity  for  so  many  years,  he  had  made  it,  per- 
haps, apparent  that  at  least  he  would  serve  no  other,  and 
that  he  regarded  himself  as  debarred  from  the  first  place  in 
the  state  only  by  the  existence  of  one  precarious  life.  The 
rumour  that  Agrippa  had  counselled  the  restoration  of  the 
republic,  and  was  himself  at  heart  a  true  republican,  may 
have  arisen  from  hints  dropped  by  himself  to  remind  Au- 
gustus that  his  claims  could  not  safely  be  disregarded.1 

But  neither  these  rumours,  nor  the  splendour  of  his  shows, 
and  utility  of  the  manifold  works  he  designed  and  executed, 
Marceiius  en-  availed  to  obtain  for  Agrippa  any  peculiar  popu- 
poputerlty  than  larity  with  the  citizens.  Born  of  obscure,  and 
Agrippa.  perhaps  vulgar,  extraction,  he  could  never  per- 

haps shake  off  the  manner  of  the  plebeian  client,  and  invest 
himself  with  the  easy  address  of  the  noble  Roman  which  won 
all  hearts  in  an  Antonius  or  an  Octavius.  His  countenance, 
as  it  is  exhibited  on  the  medals,  was  stern  and  rigid,  expres- 
sive of  grave  thought  and  inflexible  will,  but  destitute  of  all 
the  graces  of  feature  and  expression  which  secured  the  popu- 
lar triumphs  of  a  Caesar  or  a  Pompeius.  It  is  probable  that 
he  was  naturally  reserved  and  haughty,  and  that  the  great 
but  qualified  successes  of  his  career  rendered  him  stiU  more 
so.  On  the  other  hand,  the  regard  entertained  by  the  Ro- 
mans for  the  noble  Octavia  descended  in  full  measure  upon 
her  son,  while  he  was  yet  too  young  to  exhibit  any  character 
at  all.  Already,  in  the  year  719,  the  triumvir  had  elevated 
his 'sister  to  an  equal  share  in  every  honour  and  privilege 
assigned  to  his  consort  Livia.  As  time  passed  on,  he  de- 
manded of  the  senate  that  her  son  Marceiius  should  have 
leave  to  anticipate  by  ten  years  the  age  for  soliciting  the 
consulship.  He  caused  him  to  be  chosen  aedile  for  731,  when 
yet  in  his  twentieth  year.  At  the  same  time  he  placed  the 
young  Tiberius,  twelve  months  his  junior,  in  the  quaestorship, 

1  Velleius  (ii.  79.)  describes  him  as  "  parendi,  sed  uni,  scientissimus." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  129 

to  allay,  perhaps,  the  jealousy  of  Livia.1  But  it  was  not  so 
easy  to  satisfy  Agrippa,  who  seems  to  have  resented  every 
such  act  of  favour  as  an  indication  of  the  emperor's  intention 
to  raise  his  youthful  relative  to  a  speedy  participation  in  his 
own  pre-eminence. 

In  the  year  731  Augustus  had  returned  to  Rome,  and  was 
exercising  his  eleventh  consulship.3    Struck  down  by  a  second 
illness,  more  alarming  than  the  first,  we  have  seen  sickness  of  AU- 
how  adroitly  he  contrived,  in  the  very  crisis  of  gUBAtu*;  73i. 
his  disorder,  to  flatter  the  hopes  of  the  friend      B- c- 2a 
whom  he  esteemed,  without  blighting  the  fond  anticipations 
of  the  nephew,  for  whom,  perhaps,  he  felt  the  deeper  affec- 
tion.3   When,  shortly  afterwards,  the  politic  dissembler  rose 
from  his  couch,  he  had  refrained  from  committing  himself 
beyond  return  with  either  of  the  two  expectants ;   neverthe- 
less Marcellus  could  not  dissemble  his  disappointment  and 
jealousy,  nor  perhaps  did  Agrippa  abstain  from  resenting 
his  youthful  petulance  with  undisguised  ill-humour.    Augus- 
tus was  anxious  to  separate  them.    With  this  view  he  offer- 
ed Agrippa  a  splendid  mission  in  the  East,  for  the  regula- 
tion of  the  affairs  of  one  half  of  the  empire.  Condnctof 
Agrippa  accepted  the  charge ;   but  he  went  in  ^srJPPa- 
person  no  farther  than  Lesbos,  committing  to  the  care  of  his 

1  Dion's  statement  (liii.  28.)  is  that  Marcellus  had  leave  to  become  consul 
ten  years  before  the  proper  age,  and  Tiberius  to  anticipate  by  five  years  the 
career  of  honours.  Now  in  strictness  the  qusestorian  age  was  thirty,  that  of 
the  sedile  thirty-two.  Marcellus  therefore  became  sedile,  and  might  have 
become  consul,  twelve  years,  and  Tiberius  commenced  his  career  not  five  but 
eleven  years,  before  the  tune.  If  we  are  to  credit  the  historian,  we  must  sup- 
pose, as  is  not  indeed  improbable,  that  the  decrees  in  question  were  merely 
conventional,  implying  generally  a  release  from  the  Lex  Annalis,  which  long 
before  this  time  had  ceased  to  be  much  regarded. 

*  This  was  the  last  of  the  series  of  continuous  consulships  which  Augustus 
had  held,  with  a  single  interruption  (A.  u.  722)  since  721.  He  assumed  it, 
we  may  presume,  this  year  in  order  to  introduce  the  young  scions  of  his  house 
into  public  life  with  more  solemnity.  His  assumption  in  this  year  also  of  the 
tribunitian  power  may  have  induced  him  to  waive  for  the  future  the  now  in- 
ferior dignity  of  the  consulship,  which  he  accepted  only  once  subsequently. 

3  Dion,  liii.  80. ;  Suet.  Oct.  28.    See  above,  chapter  xrx. 
VOL.  iv. — 9 


130  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

legates  the  execution  of  the  orders  he  issued  from  thence. 
This  conduct  may  have  been  interpreted  by  some  as  a  token 
of  his  moderation;  but  to  others  it  may  have  seemed  an 
indication  of  offended  pride,  and  of  a  suspicion  that  his  mis- 
sion was  the  result  of  the  emperor's  distrust  rather  than  of 
his  confidence.1  Agrippa  belongs  to  the  number  of  men  of 
high  mark  and  estimation,  who  have  been  judged  worthy  of 
reigning  because,  perhaps,  they  have  never  actually  reigned. 
Little  as  his  personal  character  appears  in  the  history  we 
have  received  of  his  exploits,  his  behaviour  on  this  occasion  is 
important  from  the  element  of  weakness  it  seems  to  disclose, 
and  the  tokens  it  apparently  gives  of  moroseness  and  selfish- 
ness, which,  had  he  ever  succeeded  to  power,  might  have 
rendered  him  a  coward  and  a  tyrant.  We  shall  presently 
witness  a  conspicuous  example  of  a  similar  disposition,  in 
which  a  fair  renown  for  political  ability  was  overcast  by  the 
misfortune  of  inheriting  an  empire. 

The  emperor's  recovery  from  his  recent  illness  seems  to 
have  been  slow  and  dubious.   During  the  weary  hours  of  con- 
valescence the  pressure   of  public  affairs  made 

Recovery  of  •*• 

Augustus.  He  itself  doubly  felt,  and  there  may  perhaps  be  some 

Accepts  the 

tribunitian        foundation  for  the  notion  to  which  Suetonius 

^LMT. 731.       refers,  that  at  this  period  he  meditated,  for  the 

second  time,  the  surrender  of  his  power.3    But 

with  returning  strength  and  spirits  any  such  ideas  quickly 

1  Dion  says :  ov  /zeVr 01  Kal  Is  TIJV  2f  piW  cup'tKfro,  a\\'  trt  KOU  fj.a\\ov  /AtTpid- 
£wv  titeiffe  fj.lv  TOVS  fnroffrpa.T'fiyovs  tire^e.  Suetonius  also  mentions  it  as  an 
instance  of  Agrippa's  forbearance:  "Quum  .  .  quod  Marcellus  sibi  ante- 
ferretur,  Mytilenas  se,  relictis  omnibus,  contulisset."  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  vii.  45., 
mentions,  among  the  misfortunes  of  Augustus,  "  pudendam  Agrippae  ablega- 
tionem."  Velleius,  ii.  93.,  says  of  him  :  "  Qui  sub  specie  ministeriorum 
principalium  profectus  in  Asiam,  ut  fama  loquitur,  ob  tacitas  cum  Marcello  of- 
fensiones  praesenti  se  subduxerat  tempori."  Josephus,  Antiq.  xv.  10.  2.,  ex- 
presses the  opinion  common  in  the  East,  that  Agrippa  was  associated  in  the 
empire  with  Augustus :  Sxrre  Svo  rovrtav  rV  'Po>MaiW  apxV  SieirJjraic, 
KaiVapos  Kal  (utr*  avrov  ' Aypiirira.  Perhaps  it  was  supposed  that  a  division 
was  made  between  them,  as  between  the  triumvirs.  Frandsen's  Agrippa, 
p.  45. 

*  Suet.  Oct.  28. :  referred  to  in  chapter  xxx. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

passed  away.  The  year  731  is  memorable  in  the  life  of  the 
first  princeps  from  his  acceptance  of  the  power  of  the  tribu- 
nate, the  most  important  perhaps,  in  a  constitutional  point  of 
view,  of  all  his  prerogatives ;  certainly  that  which  above  all 
others  stamped  the  empire  of  the  Romans  as  a  government 
of  the  people  by  the  child  of  the  people  itself.  From  hence- 
forth Augustus  might  regard  himself  as  no  longer  a  military 
ruler,  but  a  popular  leader,  and  such  is  the  character  to  which 
the  best  of  his  successors  constantly  aspired.  But  the  in- 
terests of  the  people  could  not  thus  rise  without  proportion- 
ally depressing  those  of  the  privileged  classes  of  the  state ; 
and  from  henceforth  we  musl^  consider  the  reign  of  the 
Roman  nobility  as  actually  extinguished. 

But,  whatever  were  the  feelings  with  which  Augustus  re- 
garded this  accession  to  his  dignity,  and  the  completion  of 
his  work  of  popular  revolution,  the  anticipations 

•    V.A.  f  f  f        j-  j  f±~u  Deathandfu- 

he  might  form  of  founding  a  dynasty  of  tribunes  nerai  obsequies 
were  suddenly  checked  by  the  shock  of  a  terrible  °  I..TT.  m. 
domestic  calamity.  The  young  sedile  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  career  of  office,  in  which,  assisted  by  the  liber- 
ality of  his  father-in-law,  he  had  gratified  the  citizens  with 
the  grandeur  of  his  shows,  when  towards  the  end  of  the 
summer  the  fatal  malaria  of  the  city  marked  him  for  its  prey.1 
The  same  physician,  Antonius  Musa,  who  had  cured  the  vale- 
tudinarian Augustus  of  a  fever  by  the  bold  expedient  of  a 
cold-water  treatment,  failed  in  repeating  the  experiment  on 
the  younger  and  stronger  patient.8  The  emperor  seems  to 

1  I  suppose  that  as  sedile  Marcellus  would  have  passed  the  summer  in  the 
city  superintending  the  public  festivals ;  but  he  died,  we  are  told,  at  Baiae. 
Propert.  ii.  16.: 

"  At  nunc  invisae  magno  cum  crimine  Baise ; 
Quis  Deus  in  vestra  constitit  hostis  aqua  ?  " 

3  Dion,  liii.  30.  Augustus  was  treated,  according  to  Dion,  \f/vxpo\ov(riats 
Kal  tyvxpovotriats.  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  xix.  8.)  adds,  "  lactucis."  Suet.  Oct. 
81. :  "  Quia  calida  fomenta  non  proderant,  frigidis  curari  coactus,  auctore 
Antonio  Musa."  The  cold  treatment  of  certain  cases  of  fever  is  now  very 
commonly  used  with  success,  where  the  patient  has  strength  to  bear  the  vio- 
lence of  the  stimulant.  In  ague-fever  it  is  said  that  it  would  be  highly  inex- 


132  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.  731. 

have  been  much  afiected  by  this  untoward  event.1  It  was 
not  only  the  loss  to  him  of  a  favourite  child,  it  was  the  frus- 
tration of  a  cherished  plan,  and  a  stern  memento  that  fortune, 
which  had  exalted  him  so  high  as  her  vassal,  still  retained 
over  him  her  paramount  sovereignty.  He  caused  the  body 
to  be  honoured  with  public  obsequies,  and  the  ashes  laid  in 
the  mausoleum  of  his  family.  He  had  erected  this  monument 
to  his  own  mortality  in  his  sixth  consulship,  the  very  year  of 
his  return  to  Rome  and  assumption  of  undisputed  power. 
Hard  by  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  in  the  grassy  meadow  where 
the  Roman  youths  met  in  athletic  and  martial  exercises,  there 
rose  a  lofty  marble  tower  w\th  three  retiring  stages,  each  of 
which  had  its  terrace  covered  with  earth  and  planted  with 
cypresses.  These  stages  were  pierced  with  numerous  cham- 
bers, destined  to  receive  row  within  row,  and  story  upon 
story,  the  remains  of  every  member  of  the  imperial  family, 
with  many  thousands  of  their  slaves  and  freedmen.  In  the 
centre  of  that  massive  mound  the  great  founder  of  the  empire 
was  to  sleep  his  last  sleep,  while  his  statue  was  ordained  to 
rise  conspicuous  on  its  summit,  and  satiate  its  everlasting  gaze 
with  the  view  of  his  beloved  city.8  Marcellus  was  the  first 
for  whom  those  lofty  portals  opened.  The  people  followed 
his  remains  with  unavailing  lamentations,  heaping  reproaches 
on  the  unkindness  of  the  gods,  and  whispering  horrid  sus- 

pedient.  But  we  do  not  know  the  precise  nature  of  either  of  these  two  cases. 
Suetonius  says  of  the  illness  Augustus  suffered  in  Tarraco,  "  destillationibus 
jecinore  vitiato." 

1  It  was  natural  that  high  expectations  should  be  formed  of  a  youth  who 
had  such  advantages  for  courting  popular  favour.  Veil.  ii.  93. :  "  Sane,  ut 
aiunt,  ingenuarum  virtutum  laetusque  animi  et  ingenii,  fortunaeque  in  quam 
alebatur  capax."  Seneca  (Cons,  ad  Marc.  2.)  expatiates  more  amply  on  the 
same  theme. 

a  There  are  two  passages  about  the  mausoleum  of  Augustus :  Suet.  Oct. 
100.,  and  Strabo,  v.  p.  256.  I  think  they  are  sufficient  to  bear  out  this  de- 
scription, which  I  have  taken  from  Dezobry's  Rome  au  siecle  <T Augusts,  i. 
426,  and  his  charming  restoration  of  the  Campus  Martius.  Strabo  says  ex- 
pressly that  there  was  a  statue  of  Augustus  on  the  summit,  and  he  can  hardly 
have  been  mistaken.  Nevertheless  Dezobry  contends,  from  the  analogy  of 
similar  monuments,  that  it  was  probably  surmounted  by  an  urn. 


B.C.  23.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  133 

picions  of  the  unfair  practices  of  Livia.  The  season  indeed 
had  been  unusually  fatal :  but  in  these  cases  the  breath  of 
rumour  can  never  be  wiped  away,  and  every  historian  has 
thought  it  necessary  to  record  that  the  guilt  of  Marcellus's 
death  was  imputed  at  least  to  the  mother  of  Tiberius.1  The 
emperor  had  the  fortitude  to  pronounce  in  person  the  pane- 
gyric of  his  favourite,  and  dedicated  in  his  name  a  magnificent 
theatre  in  the  Campus  Martins."  But  amidst  the  vain  and 
perishable  memorials  of  the  deceased  which  Augustus  might 
fondly  love  to  accumulate,  he  was  fortunate  in  obtaining 
from  the  gratitude  of  Virgil  a  monument  nobler  and  more 
durable  than  stone.  The  verses  on  the  death  of  Marcellus, 
which  the  author  of  the  ^Eneid  inserted  in  his  poem,  bear 
evident  marks  of  a  hasty  interpolation,  and  so  far  corroborate 
the  common  belief  that  they  were  in  fact  a  later  addition. 
The  graceful  story  of  Octavia's  fainting  at  the  recital  of  her 
darling's  praises,  and  the  hopes  so  cruelly  frustrated,  crowns 
with  its  last  ray  of  interest  the  head  of  the  noblest  of  Roman 
matrons.8 

1  Dion,  liii.  33.     For  the  honours  paid  to  Marcellus  see  Servius  on  ^En. 
vi.  862. ;  and  comp.  Probert.  ii.  16.  ;  the  Consol.  ad  Liviam,  i.  65. ;  and  the 
celebrated  passage  in  Virgil  himself,  J3n.  vi.  872. : 

"  Quantos  ille  virum  magnam  Mavortia  ad  urbem 
Campus  aget  gemitus,  vel  quae  Tiberine  videbis 
Funera  cum  tumulum  prseterlabere  recentem." 

A  rude  fragment  of  the  lower  story  of  this  mausoleum  still  remains  after 
many  transformations.  The  explorer  passes  from  a  dark  alley  under  a  dark 
doorway,  and  ascending  a  dark  stair  finds  himself  in  a  small  open  amphitheatre. 
The  sepulchre  of  the  illustrious  aedile  is  now  dishonoured  by  the  vulgar  sports 
of  the  bull-ring :  "  inani  munere." 

2  Some  of  the  outer  columns  of  the  Theatre  of  Marcellus  still  remain,  and 
owe  their  preservation  to  their  having  been  built  in  with  modern  houses.     In 
one  of  these  Niebuhr  was  lodged  during  part  of  his  residence  in  Rome. 
Servius,  on  Virgil's  phrase  (^En.  i.  716.)  "  pesti  devota  futurse,"  observes, 
"  De  oratione  Augusti  translata  locutio  quam  habuit  in  tralatione  funeris  Mar- 
celli,  cum  diceret  ilium  immature  morti  devetum  fuisse."      The  first  book  of 
the  ^Eneid  must  have  been  written  earlier,  yet  such  later  insertions  were  not 
perhaps  uncommon.     Horace  also  has  the  phrase :  "  Devota  morti  pectora  li- 
berae." 

3  Donat.  in  Vit.  Virgil.  47. :    "  Dena  sestertia  (about  9(W.)  pro  singulo 
versu."    Comp.  Servius  on  .JSk,  I.  c. 


134:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Whatever  aspirations  Livia  may  have  cherished  on  the 
death  of  her  husband's  son-in-law,  it  was  not  to  her  children 
Agrippa  is  re-  ™  the  first  instance  that  the  advantage  fell.  Such 
pouBe  thec  wid-  of  the  citizens  as  had  ventured  to  augur,  from 
ow  juiia.  tke  favour  with  which  Augustus  had  treated  him, 
that  it  was  wished  to  smooth  the  way  for  his  succession,  had 
still  regarded  the  pride  and  ambition  of  Agrippa  as  a  for- 
midable obstacle  to  hia  claims.1  At  this  period  the  imperial 
autocracy  was  assuming  a  more  fixed  and  definite  character. 
Though  he  declined  at  the  close  of  this  year  to  resume  the 
consulship  which  he  had  held  for  several  years  in  succession, 
and  though  on  the  occurrence  of  scarcity  and  inundations  he 
had  firmly  refused  the  dictatorship  decreed  him  by  the  senate 
and  pressed  upon  him  not  without  violence  by  the  people, 
Augustus  was  not  the  less  intent  on  shaping  the  foundations 
he  had  himself  marked  out  for  his  power,  and  was  not  unwil- 
ling that  his,  countrymen  should  be  led  to  regard  him  and  his 
system  as  the  sole  pledges  of  regular  government.  Without 
a  partner  in  his  power  or  an  heir  to  his  pre-eminence,  he 
seemed  to  stand  isolated  and  defenceless  as  a  mark  to  the 
dagger  of  the  assassin.  In  fact,  the  death  of  Marcellus  was 

A.  u  732        speedily  followed  by  renewed  attempts  on  the  life 

B.  c.  22.        of  tng  emperor.9    While  he  withdrew  therefore 
from  Rome,  that  the  citizens  might  feel  by  renewed  experi- 
ence the  need  of  his  presence,  he  determined  to  frustrate  the 
designs  of  his  enemies  by  confirming  and  perpetuating  his 
authority.    On  reaching  Sicily  he  desired  Agrippa  to  leave 
his  retreat  in  Lesbos  and  meet  him.    Maecenas  had  whispered 
in  his  ear  that  the  minister's  power  was  already  too  great  for 
a  subject :  he  must  either  raise  him  to  his  own  rank  by  mar- 
riage with  the  widow  Julia,  or  contrive  to  rid  himself  of 

1  Veil,  ii  93. :  "  Marcellus quern  homines  ita,  si  quid  accidisset 

Csesari,  successorem  potentise  ejus  arbitrabantur  futurum,  ut  tamen  id  per  M. 
Agrippam  securo  ei  posse  contingere  non  existimarent." 

a  The  conspiracy  of  L.  Murena  and  Fannius  Caepio.  Dion,  liii.  3. ;  Veil, 
ii.  91. ;  Suet.  Oct.  19.,  in  the  first  half  of  the  year  732. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  135 

him.1  Augustus  had  resolved  upon  the  former  alternative. 
He  could  not  balance,  as  a  measure  of  prudence,  between 
Livia's  striplings  and  the  trusty  veteran  of  Pachynus  and 
Actium.  Agrippa  was  married  indeed  to  Octavia's  daughter 
Marcella ;  but  the  expedient  of  a  divorce  was  obvious  and 
easy,  and  the  mother  herself,  it  was  said,  was  prepared  and 
even  anxious  to  sacrifice  her  own  child  to  the  higher  interests 
of  her  brother's  family.2  She  had  abandoned  herself  to  pas- 
sionate sorrow  on  the  loss  of  her  son,  and  had  ever  since  made 
a  parade  of  her  affliction,  and  refused  to  admit  of  any  allevia- 
tion. Crushed  in  her  own  dearest  hopes  and  aspirations,  she 
was  alive  only  to  the  frustration  of  those  of  a  rival,  and 
woke  once  more  from  her  dream  of  unavailing  woe  to  devise 
a  scheme  for  the  mortification  of  Livia.'  The  result  of  the 
interview  was  that  Agrippa  was  sent  to  Rome,  A  n  733 
to  carry  on  the  government  in  the  name  of  Au-  B- c- 21- 
gustus,  and  to  solemnize  his  nuptials  with  the  emperor's 
daughter.4  He  was  thus  fixed  in  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen 
in  the  second  place  in  the  commonwealth,  and  was  manifestly 
designated  for  admission  hereafter,  either  in  his  own  person 
or  that  of  his  children,  to  the  first.6  The  ambition  of  Livia 
was  a  second  time  disappointed. 

From  this  tune  we  must  expect  to  find  a  veil  cast  over  the 
domestic  transactions  of  the  imperial  family.    It 

,,  ..  ,  ,,.  ..        Uneasy  rela- 

has  become  dangerous  to  divulge  to  public  curiosity  tions  bet-ween 


1  Dion,  liy.  6.,  makes  Maecenas  say,  without  circumlocution,  TT]\IKOVTOV 
aitrbv  ireirot^xoj,  &<rr«  %  ja.fiL^p&v  ffov  yevfffBai  ^  <$>ovfv6r}vai. 

9  Plutarch,  Anton.  88. ;  Suetonius,  Oct.  63. 

8  See  the  description  of  Octavia's  mourning  contrasted  with  that  of  the 
magnanimous  Livia  on  a  later  occasion,  by  Seneca,  Cons,  ad  Marc.  2.  The 
rhetorical  turn  of  the  philosopher's  pathos  is  imitated  pretty  closely  by  his 
nephew  Lucan  in  celebrating  the  sorrows  of  Cornelia,  Phars.  ix.  109.  fol. 

*  The  return  of  Agrippa  to  Rome  and  marriage  with  Julia  took  place  in 
the  first  half  of  733.  Fischer,  Roem.  Zeittafeln. 

&  The  precedent  was  cited  on  a  subsequent  occasion.  Tac.  Hist.  i.  15. : 
"D.  Augustus  sororis  filium  Marcellum,  dein  generum  Agrippam,  ....  in 
proximo  sibi  fastigio  collocavit.  Sed  Augustus  in  domo  successorem  quse- 
Bivit." 


136  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Augustus  aud  the  privacy  of  the  palace.  The  divorced  Marcella 
had  borne  her  husband  more  than  one  child ;  but 
of  the  fruit  of  this  ill-starred  marriage  we  have  no  further 
account.  She  was  wedded  herself  a  second  tune  to  Julus 
Antonius,  the  second  son  of  the  triumvir,  an  union,  however, 
which  met  with  a  still  more  disastrous  end  than  the  preceding. 
For  two  years  Agrippa  ruled  alone  in  Rome,  while  Augustus 
was  abroad  in  the  provinces,  an  alteration  of  his  sphere  of 
administration  which  gave  additional  significance  to  his  repu- 
ted association  in  the  empire.1  About  their  feelings  and  out- 
ward demeanour  towards  each  other  at  this  period,  history  is 
entirely  silent.  Jealousy  there  must  have  been  on  the  one 
side,  pride  on  the  other.  Agrippa  must  have  been  conscious 
that  he  owed  his  elevation  not  to  predilection,  for  another 
had  been  preferred  to  him,  but  to  necessity  or  fear ;  and  of 
this  consciousness  Augustus  himself  cannot  but  have  been 
painfully  sensible.  It  seems  impossible  that  the  familiarity 
of  their  early  friendship  can  have  continued  under  these  cir- 
cumstances ;  but  whatever  were  their  real  feelings,  they  were 
mutually  careful  to  give  no  handle  to  rumour,  and  during  the 
ten  years  their  union  lasted,  with  increasing  marks  of  external 
confidence,  there  was  no  whisper  of  private  dissension  be- 
tween them.  No  sign  did  Agrippa  betray  of  regret  at  parting 
from  Marcella ;  if  Julia  was  personally  distasteful  to  him,  or 
if  the  licentiousness  for  which  she  was  afterwards  notorious 
became  apparent  during  the  period  of  her  union  with  him,  he 
communicated  to  no  one  his  aversion  or  resentment.  In  the 
ten  years  which  followed,  she  bore  him  two  sons  and  as  many 
daughters,  and  was  pregnant  of  a  third  son  at  the  time  of  his 
death. 

1  Among  other  significant  incidents  which  seem  to  imply  a  virtual  equality 
between  the  two  rulers,  may  be  mentioned  the  statues  of  Augustus  and  him- 
self which  Agrippa  placed  on  either  side  of  the  entrance  to  the  Pantheon,  and 
the  two  halls  in  his  palace  to  which  Herod,  the  king  of  Judea,  gave  their 
names  respectively.  Joseph.  Antig.  xv.  9.  3. ;  Sell.  Jud.  i.  21.  1.  Agrippa 
also  erected  his  own  statue  together  with  one  of  Augustus  on  the  Propyhea  at 
Athens. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  137 

Agrippa  did  not  long  remain  in  the  exercise  of  his  new 
authority  in  Rome.  While  Augustus  was  still  absent  in  Asia, 
the  report  of  renewed  disturbances  in  Gaul,  and  8tate  of  affalrB 
afterwards  in  Spain,  called  him  to  the  opposite 
quarter  of  the  empire,  where  he  speedily  re- 
pressed  an  outbreak  of  the  Cantabrians.  It  is  possible  that 
he  may  have  reached  the  capital  once  more  before  the  return 
of  Augustus,  towards  the  end  of  the  year  735.1  During  his 
absence,  however,  and,  we  may  suppose,  from  the  want  of 
his  firm  controlling  hand,  the  turbulence  of  some  ambitious 
intriguers  had  brought  the  government  into  peril.  Egna- 
tius  Rufus,  the  asdile  of  the  year  before,  had  A  n  735- 
ventured  to  solicit  the  consulship,  vacant  by  the  B- c- 19- 
emperor's  refusal,  not  at  the  recommendation  of  Augustus, 
but  through  his  popularity  with  the  citizens.  Riots  and 
bloodshed  ensued,  though  we  are  left  altogether  in  igno- 
rance from  what  quarter  they  sprang.  The  actual  consul, 
Sentius  Saturninus,  acted,  we  are  told,  with  vigour.  He  chas- 
tised the  disturbers  of  the  public  peace,  and  arrested  Egna- 
tius  and  others  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy  against  the  empe- 
ror's life,  a  charge  sufficiently  improbable  in  the  absence  of 
the  emperor  at  many  hundred  miles'  distance.8 

The  treason  of  Egnatius,  indeed,  never  ripened  into  act. 
As  with  previous  conspirators,  his  nefarious  design  was  dis- 
covered, as  we  are  informed,  and  stifled  in  the  bud.  But  the 
time  had  already  arrived  when  it  might  be  convenient  to 
extinguish  a  vexatious  ambition  by  the  false  imputation  of  a 
crime.  Saturninus  refused  the  invidious  privilege  which  the 
senate  would  have  thrust  upon  him,  of  maintaining  an  armed 
guard  for  his  personal  security  against  the  disturbers  of  the 

1  Fischer  (Roem.  Zeit.)  supposes  that  he  had  returned  before  the  summer, 
735,  from  a  passage  in  Frontinus  de  Aquced.  10. :  "Agrippa  cum  jam  consul 
tertium  fuisset,  C.  Sentio  Q.  Lucretio  Coss.  post  annum  xiii.  quam  Juliam  de- 
duxerat  (scil.  ann.  721),  Virginem  quoque  in  agro  Lucullano  collectam  Romam 
perduxit :  dies  quo  primum  in  urbe  respondent  V.  Id.  Jun.  invenitur."  But 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  from  this  that  he  was  in  Rome  at  the  time. 

1  Veil.  ii.  91.:  "Egnatius,  aggregatis  simillimis  sibi,  interimere  Caesarem 
Btatuit."  Comp.  Suet.  Oct.  19. ;  Dion,  liv.  10. 


138  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

public  peace,  and  distinguished  senators  were  sent  to  entreat 
Augustus  to  resume  the  consulship  which  he  had  already 
waived.  He  contented  himself,  however,  with  nominating 
one  of  the  envoys,  Q.  Lucretius,  and  shortly  afterwards  quit- 
ted Samos,  and  reentered  Rome,  after  three  years'  absence, 
Return  of  AU-  °n  the  fourth  of  the  Ides  of  October.1  The  sub- 
gusluu.  735.  ordination  of  Agrippa's  position  to  that  of  his 
illustrious  patron,  in  general  estimation,  as  well  as 
in  outward  distinction,  is  clearly  marked  in  the  application  of 
the  senate  to  Augustus  alone,  notwithstanding  the  presumed 
association  of  the  other  with  him.  If  the  exploits  of  Agrip- 
pa,  his  love  for  his  country,  and  even  his  services  in  her  be- 
half, might  in  some  respects  be  compared  with  those  of  his 
imperator,  the  distinction  of  the  Julian  name  was  confined  to 
Augustus  alone ;  he  alone  could  claim  descent  from  tutelary 
gods  and  heroes ;  Agrippa,  by  his  recent  marriage,  might 
become  the  father  of  a  divine  race,  but  Augustus  was  him- 
self divine.8 

The  joy  which  the  Romans  had  vociferously  expressed 
on  the  return  of  Caesar  from  Thapsus  and  Munda,  of  Octa- 
Enthusiasm  of  vius  himself  from  Actium  and  his  Asturian  battle- 
the  ret^m  of n  fields,  was  again  manifested  with  no  less  apparent 
Aufu^u7^5  enthusiasm  when  he  regained  the  city  after  the 
B.  o.  is.  bloodless  triumphs  of  his  eastern  administration. 

1  Kalendar.  Amiternin.  in  Fast.  Verrian.  p.  114.  ed.  Foggin.  (Orelli,  Inscr, 
ii.  400.)  IV.  Eid.  Oct.  August.  Lud.  in  circ.  Fer.  ex  S.  C.  q.  e.  d.  Imp.  Caes. 
Aug.  ex  transmarinis  provinciis  urbem  intravit,  araque  Fort.  Reduci  constit. 
Fischer,  Roem,  Zeit. 

8  Agrippa  seems  to  have  called  himself  by  his  prcenomen  and  cognomen, 
and  allowed  the  nomen  of  his  obscure  Vipsanian  gens  to  drop.  The  lowness 
of  his  origin  is  constantly  put  forward  by  the  ancients,  as  Veil.  ii.  127.,  "novi- 
tas  familife  haud  obstitit,"  &c. ;  and  so  late  a  writer  as  Servius,  in  ^En.  viii. 
682.:  "  Agrippa  non  adeo  claro  genere  ortus."  M.  Seneca,  Controv.  ii.  12.: 
"•  Tanta  autem  sub  divo  Augusto  libertas  fuit  ut  praepotenti  tune  M.  Agrippaa 
non  defuerint  qui  ignobilitatem  exprobarent.  Vipsanius  Agrippa  fuerat :  Vip- 
sanii  nomen,  quasi  argumentum  paternae  humilitatis,  sustulerat,  et  M.  Agrippa 
dicebatur.  Quum  defenderet  reum,  fuit  accusator,  qui  diceret :  M.  Agrippam 
et  quod  medium  est.  Volebat  Vipsanium  intelligi."  See  Frandsen's  Agrippa, 
p.  254. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  -[39 

The  last  two  years  had  been  marked  by  the  paralysis  of 
legitimate  order  in  Rome,  and  had  brought  back  a  pain- 
ful reminiscence  of  the  days  of  demagogic  turbulence,  when 
consuls  vied  with  tribunes  in  the  violation  of  the  laws.  A 
whole  generation  had  passed  since  the  comitia  had  been 
dissolved,  and  the  tribes  dismissed  to  their  homes  without  the 
completion  of  the  business  of  their  meeting,  the  election  of 
the  chief  magistrates  of  the  state.  Such,  it  might  naturally 
be  remarked,»had  been  the  happy  effect  of  lending  autocratic 
authority  to  the  most  deserving  of  the  citizens,  that  the 
course  of  law  and  order  had  never  since  been  seriously  inter- 
rupted, even  in  the  midst  of  wars  and  revolutions.  But  no 
sooner  did  the  emperor  quit  the  helm,  than  the  perils  of  winds 
and  waves  broke  out  with  redoubled  fury.  The  days  of 
Clodius  and  Milo  returned,  intrigues  were  enforced  with  the 
hand  of  violence,  fraud  was  cemented  with  blood.  Checked, 
perhaps,  for  a  time  by  the  presence  of  Agrippa,  these  distur- 
bances had  recommenced  on  his  departure  from  the  city,  and 
afiairs  had  come  to  pass  not  unlike  that  in  which  Pompeius 
had  been  invested  with  the  sole  consulship  for  the  restoration 
of  the  commonwealth.  Augustus  was  now  invoked,  as  Pom- 
peius had  been,  to  accept  extraordinary  powers  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  state  :  but  he  already  possessed  the  substance,  and 
was  satiated  with  the  titles  of  power.  His  return  to  Rome  was 
celebrated,  in  the  fashion  of  the  day,  by  honorary  distinctions, 
which  were  not,  however,  without  their  significance.  An  altar 
was  erected  to  Fortuna  Redux,  the  good  genius  of  the  state 
which  had  brought  her  hero  home,  and  the  day  of  his  return 
was  marked  as  a  festive  anniversary  in  the  calendar.1  Upon 

1  Dion,  liv.  10.  Eckhel  (vi.  100.)  and  the  numismatists  cite,  medals  refer- 
ring to  this  circumstance.  Similar  honours  were  afterwards  paid  to  Domitian 
(Martial,  viii.  65.),  Vespasian,  Caracalla,  and  other  emperors.  Reimar  on 
Dion.)  I.  c.  They  are  referred  to  by  Claudian  in  the  solemn  exordium  to  his 
"  Sixth  Consulship  of  Honorius : " 

"  Aurea  Fortunaa  Reduci  si  templa  priores 

Ob  reditum  vovere  ducum." 

It  is  curious  that  this  compliment  was  paid  to  Honorius,  as  to  Augustus,  upon 
a  pretended  restoration  of  the  comitial  elections : 


140  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  12th  of  October  the  feast  of  the  Augustalia  was  hence- 
forth to  be  solemnized.  But  in  order  to  avoid  the  display  of 
a  solemn  reception,  he  was  careful  to  make  his  entry  into 
the  city,  as  on  former  occasions,  by  night.1  His  successes 
over  the  Parthians,  obtained,  as  he  vaunted,  without  a  blow, 
by  the  mere  terror  of  his  name,  he  celebrated  in  due  course 
by  the  modest  ceremony  of  an  ovation,  on  which  occasion  he 
led  his  legions  on  horseback,  through  the  gates  of  the  city 
under  an  arch  erected  in  his  honour.  The  temple  of  Mars 
the  Avenger  has  been  already  mentioned,  in  which  the  spoils 
of  Parthia  and  the  recaptured  standards  were  suspended, 
while  medals  were  struck  to  commemorate  the  rout  of  the 
mail-clad  bowmen,  and  the  homage  of  Phraates." 

It  was  upon  this  return  to  Rome,  when  the  senate  and 
people  had  repeatedly  declared  that  the  wheels  of  govern- 
ment could  not  move  without  the  pressure  of  his 

Augustus  ac-  .Till  -11 

ceptsthecon-  guiding  hand,  that  Augustus  allowed  the  cycle 
SU'Aru°7Mi!'  of  his  administrative  functions  to  be  completed 
with  the  assumption  for  life  of  the  consular 
power.  Nor  must  we  fail  to  remark  that,  at  the  same  time 
that  he  thus  allowed  the  sphere  of  his  own  powers  to  be 
extended,  he  did  not  fail  to  advance  his  colleague  Agrippa 
to  a  still  nearer  equality  with  himself.  He  caused  him  to 
share  with  himself  the  tribunitian  power,  the  same  which  the 
Agnppa  raised  most  careful  of  Roman  political  writers  has  desig- 
iSISTtriffi11  nated  as  the  highest  and  most  distinctive  prero- 
tun  power.  gative  of  the  Caesar.'  This  power,  however,  he 

"  Indigenas  habitus  nativa  Palatia  summit, 
Et  patriis  plebem  castris  sociante  Quirino 
Mars  augusta  sui  renovat  suffragia  Campi." 

1  Suet.  Oct.  53.  says  that  this  was  his  usual  custom.     "  Ne  quern  officii 
causa  inquietaret." 

2  See  above,  chapter  xxxiv. 

*  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  56. :  "  Id  summi  fastigii  vocabulum  Augustus  repperit 
.  .  .  .  M.  deinde  Agrippam  socium  ejus  potestatis  ....  delegit,  ne  successor 
in  incerto  foret."  Comp.  Dion,  liv.  12. :  6  5e  'Aypitnrat  hr^r  ainapx^11  Tp6- 
•aov  TIV&  inr'  avrov  irpo^xflij.  Serv.  on  ^£n.  viii.  682. :  "  M.  Agrippa  .... 
societate  Augusti  ad  summos  honores  pervenh  ;  nam  Tribunus  plebis  quietissi- 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

limited  in  the  first  instance  to  a  period  'of  five  years.  About 
the  same  time  he  resumed,  in  his  own  person,  the  censure  or 
prefecture  of  manners,  and  proceeded  to  exercise  prefecture  of 
it  by  a  second  lustration  of  the  senate,  as  well  as  manners- 
by  the  introduction  of  sumptuary  enactments.  He  proposed, 
at  first,  to  reduce  the  chief  assembly  of  the  state  A.  c.  736. 
to  its  original  number  of  three  hundred,  but  the  B- c<  18- 
reclamations  of  the  members  themselves,  of  whom  he  was 
about  to  demand  so  large  a  sacrifice,  induced  him  to  retain  as 
many  as  six  hundred ;  indeed,  from  the  difficulty  he  acknow- 
ledged in  ensuring  the  attendance  of  a  sufficient  number  to 
transact  business,  he  could  hardly  have  afforded  to  reduce  it 
lower  by  one  half.  With  this  reduction  of  its  numbers  was 
connected,  perhaps,  the  raising  of  the  census  or  qualification 
of  the  order.1  This  was  the  emperor's  second  reform  of  the 
senate,  and  warned,  perhaps,  by  the  animosity  the  first  had 
excited,  he  secured  the  aid  of  Agrippa  in  the  task,  and  threw 
a  portion  of  the  responsibility  upon  the  senators  themselves, 
selecting  himself,  in  the  first  instance,  thirty  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished, and  requiring  these  to  choose  the  remainder  by  a 
combination  of  appointment  and  ballot.  Nevertheless  he 
found  himself  the  object  of  desperate  hostility  to  many  of  the 
rejected ;  and  it  was  on  this  occasion,  we  are  told,  that  he 
deemed  it  advisable  to  protect  his  person  with  a  guard  of 
faithful  friends,  to  wear  a  coat  of  mail  under  his  robes,  and 
search  every  senator  who  approached  him.2 

Now  followed  also  the  second  attempt  of  Augustus  to 
restore  the  honours  of  matrimony  by  penal  legislation,  the 
character  and  provisions  of  which  have  been  spe-  Legislation  of 
cified  in  a  preceding  chapter.    The  leges  Julice  Aug™tus- 
of  this  epoch  included  also  divers  measures,  with  the  particu- 

mus  fuit."  The  writer  intends  to  mark  that  the  tribunate  of  Agrippa  was  ex- 
ercised in  perfect  accord  with  the  ruling  powers  of  the  state,  not,  as  in  the  old 
times  of  the  demagogues,  in  opposition  to  them. 

1  Dion,  liv.  12.  18. ;  Suet.  Oct.  41. 

a  Suet.  Oct.  35.,  on  the  authority  of  Cremutius  Cordus,  who,  however,  bears 
the  character  of  a.frondeur,  and  is  not  to  be  implicitly  relied  on. 


1J.2  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

lars  of  which  we  are*  not  acquainted,  for  the  regulation  of 
criminal  procedure  in  cases  of  bribery  at  elections,  exactions 
in  the  provinces,  and  other  subjects  of  administrative  reform. 
With  the  close  of  the  year  736,  the  decennial  period  to  which 
Augustus  had  insisted  on  restricting  his  imperium  was  about 
to  reach  its  termination.    He  does  not  appear  to 
imeper?um  for6   have  waited  to  be  pressed  to  renew  it,  but  plead- 
v<Af  uai736.       ing  the  necessity  which  still  existed  for  the  super- 
intendence of  his  vigilant  authority,  and  appre- 
hensive perhaps  of  the  success  of  the  conspiracies  still  rife 
against  him,  if  he  suffered  himself  to  be  disarmed,  he  required 
the  senate  and  people,  who  certainly  exhibited  no  reluctance 
in  complying,  to  invest  him  with  it  once  more,  but  this  time, 
not  for  ten,  but  only  for  five  years.1 

The  completion  of  the  cycle  of  the  imperial  functions 
could  not  be  more  fitly  celebrated  than  by  a  revival  of  the 
The  Ludi  Sze-  solemn  festival,  which,  according  to  a  tradition 
cul"eu.'737.  obscurely  floating  in  the  minds  of  the  Romans, 
was  appointed  to  mark  the  transition  of  each 
succeeding  age  of  the  republic.  When  the  Etruscans  laid 
the  foundation  of  a  city,  the  births  of  the  year,  it  was 
said,  were  carefully  registered,  and  with  the  decease  of  the 
last  survivor,  the  first  age  of  the  city  was  supposed  to  ter- 
minate. In  a  similar  way  each  subsequent  age  was  calcu- 
lated ;  but  this  fanciful  definition  of  the  saeculum  seems  to 
have  been  soon  lost  in  the  more  natural  and,  at  the  same  time, 
stricter  notion  of  a  fixed  number  of  years.  Whether,  how- 
ever, the  age  or  century  of  the  early  Romans  was  a  hundred 
or  a  hundred  and  ten  of  their  years,  or  whether  it  was  com- 
puted with  reference  to  periods  of  ten  or  of  twelve  months, 
of  ordinary  or  intercalated  years,  remains  still  a  mystery,  into 
which  it  is  the  less  necessary  to  inquire,  inasmuch  as  the  secu- 
lar games,  anterior  to  the  epoch  of  Augustus,  seem  to  have 
had  little  significance,  and  to  have  been  celebrated  with  no 
sort  of  regularity.8  But  Augustus  determined  to  seize  an 

'  Dion,  liii.  16.,  liv.  12. 

8  Much  has  been  written  upon  the  mode  of  computing  time  to  which  the 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  143 

opportunity  for  inaugurating  his  rule  by  a  solemn  ceremony, 
and  with  his  usual  tact  he  perceived  how  impressive  the  re- 
vival of  this  historic  tradition  might  be  made.  The  Sibylline 
oracles,  searched  by  his  obsequious  priests,  readily  presented 
the  sanction  he  required ;  the  forms  of  the  ceremonial  were 
investigated  by  the  most  learned  of  his  legal  antiquarians ; 
and  the  college  of  the  Quindecemvirs  undertook  to  prescribe 
the  particulars  of  the  observance,  and  superintend  its  execu- 
tion. The  ceremony  was  to  occupy  three  days  and  nights, 
and,  for  some  time  previous  to  its  c'ommencement,  heralds 
were  appointed  to  traverse  the  streets  of  the  city  and  the 
neighbouring  towns,  inviting  every  citizen  to  attend  upon  a 
solemn  spectacle  which  none  of  them  had  ever  yet  seen,  or 
could  ever  see  again.1  The  secular  games  were,  indeed,  once 

secular  games  should  be  referred.  I  will  try  to  compress  within  the  limits  of  a 
note  the  most  important  points  for  consideration.  We  learn  from  Censorinus 
(c.  17.)  that  Valerius  Antias,  Varro,  and  Livy  make  100  years  the  period  of 
the  saeculum,  while  Augustus  himself  and  Horace  specified  110.  The  notices 
we  have  of  the  celebration  of  these  games  anterior  to  the  time  of  Augustus 
are  so  inconsistent  that  we  must  conclude  there  was  no  such  regular  cele- 
bration of  them  at  all.  The  discrepancy,  however,  in  the  number  of  years, 
as  stated  to  us  (100  and  110),  may  perhaps  be  accounted  for  by  comparing  the 
ordinary  year  of  Numa,  355  days,  with  the  intercalary  years  of  877-8  days. 
Multiplying  the  first  of  these  numbers  by  110,  and  the  second  by  100,  the  re- 
sults will  come  sufficiently  near  to  one  another  to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  a 
round  number.  (I  take  the  hint  of  this  solution  from  Walckenaer,  Hist.  <P Ho- 
race, ii.  269.,  though  I  cannot  subscribe  to  the  method  by  which  he  arrives  at 
still  closer  results.)  But  however  this  may  be,  succeeding  ages  soon  lost  the 
clue  to  this  synchronism.  The  emperor  Claudius  repeated  the  games  A.  u. 
800,  disregarding  those  of  Augustus  as  irregular.  Claudius  was  disregarded 
again  in  his  turn  by  Domitian,  who  renewed  the  celebration  in  841,  anticipa-* 
ting,  in  his  impatience,  by  six  years  the  period  prescribed  by  Augustus.  To 
the  Augustan  computation  Severus  conformed  precisely,  and  repeated  the 
solemnity  in  957,  after  two  intervals  of  110  years  each.  Philippus,  however, 
returned  once  more  to  the  precedent  of  Claudius  in  the  year  of  the  city  1000. 
This  was  the  last  celebration,  though  Zosimus,  in  the  year  1067,  suggests  that 
the  time  has  arrived  for  another  secular  festival,  according  to  the  computation 
of  Severus. 

1  Walckenaer's  ingenuity  has  discovered  another  reason  for  fixing  the  age 
at  110  years,  in  the  law  of  mortality  as  deduced  from  certain  French  tables. 
He  finds  that,  in  a  population  of  the  amount  of  that  of  the  Roman  empire, 


144  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

more  repeated  within  the  lifetime  of  a  large  portion  of  that 
same  generation,  but  never  again,  assuredly,  on  so  worthy  an 
occasion,  nor,  perhaps,  with  such  popular  enthusiasm.  The 
ceremonies  themselves,  peculiar  to  the  occasion,  were  of  the 
simplest  kind,  consisting  of  the  distribution  of  lustral  torches, 
sulphur,  and  pitch,  to  the  citizens  at  certain  stations,  and  of 
wheat,  barley,  and  beans,  at  another,  in  which  the  emperor 
himself  took  a  prominent  part.  The  Aventine,  the  Capitoline, 
and  the  Palatine  hills  were  paraded  by  crowds  of  citizens. 
Sacrifices  were  offered  for  the  safety  of  the  state  to  the  chief 
divinities  of  the  national  religion.  The  game  of  Troy  was 
enacted,  together  with  other  shows,  in  the  circus,  and  occu- 
pied with  scenic  representations  the  intervals  of  sacrifice,  and 
divided  the  interest  of  the  multitude.  The  festival  concluded 
with  the  performance  of  an  ode  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  in 
the  atrium  of  Apollo  on  the  Palatine,  by  a  chorus  of  noble 
youths  and  maidens,  the  auspicious  offspring  of  the  holiest 
marriages,  and  both  of  whose  parents  were  living.1  Such 
were  the  rites,  it  was  confidently  affirmed,  by  which  Rome 
had  gained  the  favour  of  the  gods,  and  secured  their  protec- 
tion ;  and  when  their  due  repetition  was  first  discontinued, 
three  ages  later,  the  champions  of  expiring  Paganism  beheld 
in  their  cessation  an  omen  of  the  dissolution  of  the  empire, 
and  a  not  inadequate  cause  for  it.2 

By  one  writer,  at  least,  the  name  of  Agrippa  is  associated 
on  equal  terms  with  that  of  Augustus  himself,  in  his  account 
of  the  secular  games,"  though  in  the  more  courtly  panegyrics 

which  he  supposes  to  be  four  times  that  of  France  (28,763,192),  there  will  be 
at  any  given  time  sixty-four  individuals  aged  105,  thirty-two  aged  106,  sixteen 
aged  107,  eight  aged  108,  four  aged  109,  but  not  one  will  have  arrived  at  the 
age  of  110.  We  cannot  suppose  that  the  Etruscans  had  the  means  of  making 
such  an  induction  as  this,  nor,  probably,  the  capacity  to  deduce  a  law  from  it 

1  The  nature  of  the  ceremonies  may  be  collected  from  Horace's  farm. 
Scecul.  ;  Tac,  Ann.  xi.  11. :  Zosimns,  ii.  init.  The  origin  of  the  festival  ia 
narrated  by  Zoeimus  and  Valerius  Max.  ii.  4,  5.  For  a  lively  description  of 
them,  see,  besides  Walckenaer,  Dezobry,  Rome,  kc.,  ii.  412.  folL 

*  Zosimus,  ii.  7 :  Toi/rov  5t  ^  <f>v\ax6(yros  (Set  tls  T^V  vvv  avviyovacui  iipa* 
(\6flf  TO,  Trpay^ara  SvtrK\rif>iav. 


UNDER   THE  EMPIRE.  145 

of  the  poets  no  such  union  or  participation  was,  IngtHtltion  of 
perhaps,  alluded  to.1  If  the  antiquarian  Censo-  $et|*e^tCyUre 
rinus  repeated  what  he  had  read  in  the  archives  A- u-  's'- 

B.  C.  17. 

and  on  public  monuments,  Horace  and  Ovid  re- 
flected, we  may  suppose,  the  popular  sentiment  which  per- 
sisted with  unusual  fidelity  in  confining  all  its  enthusiasm  to 
the  good  deeds  of  Augustus  alone.  That  Agrippa,  however, 
had  now  actually  reached  a  point  of  elevation  at  which  he 
could  no  longer  be  deputed  by  his  colleague  to  discharge  an 
office  of  dependence,  appears  very  clearly  in  the  formal  insti- 
tution at  this  period  of  the  prefecture  of  the  city.  Hitherto, 
upon  every  emergency,  it  was  to  the  faithful  energy  of  Agrip- 
pa that  the  control  of  the  capital,  the  command  of  its  garri- 
son, the  supervision  of  the  disaffected  and  suspected  in  its 
vicinity,  had  been  entrusted.  But  this  was  an  irregular  office 
which  had  never  yet  been  incorporated  formally  in  the  system 
of  the  imperial  government.  Now,  at  last,  Augustus  found  it 
necessary  to  make  it  regular  and  perpetual.  The  association 
of  Agrippa  in  so  much  of  the  outward  show  of  power,  had 
served,  perhaps,  to  exasperate  the  remnant  of  the  republicans ; 
intrigues  against  the  life  of  the  emperor  became  more  rife 
than  ever,  and  permanent  machinery  might  be  required  for 
the  protection  of  his  august  person.2  But  he  did  not  now 
depute  Agrippa  to  act  as  the  commander  of  his  own  body- 
guard. He  selected  in  the  first  place  Valerius  Messala,  the 
foremost  of  the  citizens  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen, 

1  Censorinus,  c.  17. :  "  Quintos  ludos,  C.  Furnio,  C.  Junio  Silano  Coss.  anno 
DCCXXXVII.  Caesar  Augustus  et  Agrippa  fecerunt."    But  Tacitus,  Suetonius, 
Pliny,  and  Dion  mention  Augustus  only.     Compare  the  Carmen  Sceculare  of 
Horace,  and  the  allusion  in  Ovid,  Trist.  ii.  25.      Horace's  hymn  is  remarkable 
as  an  index  to  the  popular  feeling  of  the  time,  and  shows  how  far  the  regard 
of  the  Romans  for  Augustus  was  removed  from  the  vulgar  adulation  of  later 
despotisms.      The  writer  never  mentions  the  name  of  his  hero,  and  only  once 
directly  alludes  to  him  as  "  Clarus  Anchisae  Venerisque  sanguis,"  while  hardly 
a  line  could  fail  to  remind  the  citizens  indirectly  of  his  presumed  merits.     No 
monument  of  antiquity  gives  us  a  clearer  view  of  the  self-respect  of  the  Roman 
character,  which  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  idea  of  religion  of  which  Paganism 
was  capable. 

2  Dion,  liv.  15. :   nal  ^Kelvif  KO!  r$  'A-ypiinrq;  t-mf3ov\€vcra.i. 

VOL.  IT. — 10 


146  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

and  second  to  none  in  rank  and  the  importance  of  his  services. 
He  might  hope  to  gratify  the  Romans,  and  disarm  their  suspi- 
cion, by  placing  in  the  vanguard  of  tyranny  a  man  whom  they 
trusted  and  admired,  rather  than  a  creature  of  his  own,  such 
as  Macenas.  The  Romans,  however,  and  their  master,  must 
have  been  equally  surprised  when  Messala,  after  holding  the 
office  six  days,  insisted  upon  resigning  it,  pleading,  perhaps, 
his  inability  to  discharge  its  arduous  duties,  but  allowing  it  to 
be  understood  that  he  regarded  it  as  hostile  to  liberty.1  He 
was  succeeded  by  Statilius  Taurus,  whose  military  distinctions 
have  been  already  frequently  mentioned,  and  who  had  been 
consul  with  Augustus  ten  years  before.  Taurus  was  now  a 
man  of  advanced  age,  but  the  combined  vigour  and  discretion 
with  which  he  acquitted  himself  became  a  theme  of  general 
admiration.2 

Among  other  tokens  of  incipient  monarchy,  must  here  be 
mentioned  the  select  council  which  Augustus  at  this  time  em- 
institution  of  a  ployed  for  the  handling  of  state  affairs,  which  he 
council  of  state,  gradually  withdrew  more  and  more  from  the  con- 
sideration of  the  assembled  senate.  The  first  adoption  of 
such  a  system  is  dated  from  an  earlier  period ;  but  in  the 
interval  he  had  resided  but  little  in  the  capital,  and  it  was 
not,  perhaps,  till  his  second  return  from  Asia,  and  second 
reform  of  the  senate,  that  he  allowed  this  privy  council  to 
become  a  distinct  engine  of  his  government.  The  convenience 
which  had  first  suggested  the  arrangement  became  more  and 
more  sensibly  felt  with  the  decline  in  the  political  training  of 
the  great  body  of  the  nobles,  and  their  growing  indifference 

1  Tacitus,  Ann.  vi.  11. :  "Sumsit  ex  consularibus  qui  coerceret  servitia  et 
quod  civium  audacia  turbidum,  nisi  vim  metuat :  primusque  Messala  Corvinus 
earn  potestatem,  et  paucos  intra  dies  finem,  accepit,  quasi  nescius  exercendi." 
The  studied  mildness  with  which  Tacitus  speaks  of  this  office  is  rather  remark- 
able. Compare  Hieron.  in  Euseb.  Chron.  :"Messala  Corvinus  primus  praefec- 
tus  urbis  factus  sexto  die  magistratu  se  abdicavit,  incivilem  potestatem  esse 
contestans."  This  appointment  is  placed  at  the  commencement  of  738,  by 
Frandsen,  Agrippa,  p.  80. 

*  Tacitus,  I.  c. :  "  Turn  Taurus  Statilius,  quanquam  provecta  rotate,  egregie 
toleravit." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

to  public  affairs.  Their  indisposition  to  business  increased 
with  the  consciousness  that  their  interference  was  not  wanted, 
and  gradually  every  transaction  of  importance  was  left  to  the 
secret  deliberation  of  the  imperial  councillors.  The  reception 
of  foreign  kings  and  envoys,  and  some  other  stated  ceremo- 
nials, still  drew  the  senators  together ;  but  the  real  business 
of  the  state  soon  dropped  as  completely  from  their  hands,  as 
that  of  election  had  slipped  from  the  control  of  the  people.1 

The  more  prominent  Augustus  became  in  the  outward 
titles  and  actual  substance  of  power,  the  more  did  he  strive  to 
appear  in  his  habits  and  demeanour  simply  the  studious  mode- 
equal  of  his  citizens.  He  rejected  with  signs  of  empero^sde- 
horror  the  appellation  of  Dominus,  which  awk-  meanour- 
ward  flatterers  sometimes  addressed  to  him  ;  and  once  in  the 
theatre,  when  a  player  uttered  the  words,  Ojust  and  generous 
Ziord,  and  the  spectators  applied  it  with  acclamations  to*  the 
emperor,  he  repressed  their  flattery  with  a  frown  and  gesture  of 
impatience,  and  the  next  day  issued  an  edict  to  forbid  the  use 
of  a  term  which  seemed  to  imply  that  the  Romans  were  his 
slaves.3  When  consul,  he  generally  traversed  the  streets  on 
foot,  nor  at  other  times  did  he  shut  himself  up  in  a  close  litter. 
In  the  senate  he  rejected,  as  far  as  possible,  the  distinctions 
of  the  consular  dignity.  The  fathers  were  given  to  under- 
stand that  he  did  not  wish  to  be  conducted  from  his  door  to 
the  curia  by  a  crowd  of  illustrious  attendants,  nor  would  he 
let  them  rise  from  their  places  when  he  entered  the  assembly 
or  quitted  it.  As  he  passed  along  the  streets  he  received 
petitions  with  equal  affability.  The  Romans  repeated  with 
delight  his  playful  rebuke  of  a  nervous  suppliant,  whom  he 
likened  to  a  man  giving  a  halfpenny  to  an  elephant.  Within 

1  Suet.  Oct.  35. ;  Dion,  liii.  21.    This  council  was  instituted  as  a  floating 
body,  consisting  of  certain  of  the  chief  annual  magistrates,  and  fifteen  senators 
chosen  for  a  period  of  six  months.      It  was  designed  originally  to  prepare 
measures  for  the  consideration  of  the  larger  assembly.     Dion  refers  to  the  in- 
stitution under  the  year  727. 

2  Suet.  Oct.  53. ;  Dion,  Iv.  12. ;  but  Orosius  (vi.  22.)  with  only  the  Chris- 
tian application  of  the  word  in  view:  "  Domini  appellationem,  ut  homo,  decli- 
navit." 


148  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  curia  he  suffered  with  patience  many  harsh  attacks.  One 
senator  ventured  to  exclaim,  I  do  not  know  what  you  mean  I 
another,  I  would  contradict  you,  if  I  might !  Once,  on  his 
quitting  the  assembly  in  anger  at  the  noisy  altercations  which 
were  going  on,  several  voices  shouted  after  him,  ~We  ought  to 
be  let  speak  on  public  affairs ! *  It  must  be  remarked  that, 
with  the  loss  of  personal  dignity,  such  of  the  senators  as  did 
not  sink  into  abject  flatterers,  too  often  sought  to  assert  their 
self-respect  by  ill-mannered  freedoms.  Augustus  was  known 
to  leave  the  curia  precipitately  to  check  the  angry  retort 
which  they  would  sometimes  have  provoked  from  him. 
When  the  fathers  were  discussing  a  proposal  for  appointing 
some  of  their  body  as  a  guard  of  honour  to  the  emperor, 
Antistius  Labeo,  who  was  notorious  for  his  blunt  humour, 
growled  out,  I  for  one  am  not  fit  to  be  posted  before  Caesar's 
bed-chamber,  for  I  snore  in  my  sleep?  It  was  observed  that, 
when  Augustus  recommended  a  candidate  for  a  magistracy, 
he  conducted  him  always  in  person  through  the  public  places, 
and  solicited  votes  in  his  favour :  his  own  vote  he  gave  in  his 
proper  tribe,  like  a  private  citizen.  When  he  canvassed  for  a 
prince  of  his  own  family,  he  was  careful  to  add,  provided  he 
deserves  the  honour.  He  allowed  himself  to  be  summoned  as 
a  witness  before  the  tribunals,  to  be  examined  and  interro- 
gated, and  abstained,  on  the  trial  of  a  friend,  from  the  formal 
testimony  to  his  public  services  which  was  sanctioned  by  an  in- 
vidious custom.'  So  great  was  now  his  respect  for  the  rights 
of  property,  that  the  assignor  of  the  military  colonies  suffered 
the  proportions  of  his  forum  to  be  curtailed,  rather  than  tres- 
pass upon  the  limits  of  private  occupiers.*  As  consul  and  cor- 
rector of  manners,  Augustus  was  anxious  to  exhibit  strictness 
and  firmness  in  the  dispensation  of  justice.  His  temper  was 

I  Suet  Oct.  53,  64. 

II  Dion,  liv.  27.     Comp.  another  story  of  Labeo,  Suet.  Oct.  54. ;  Dion, 
liv.  15. 

3  Suet.  Oct.  56. 

*  Suet.  c. :    "  Forum  angustius  fecit,  non  ausus  extorquere  possessoribus 
proximas  domos."     Mon.  Ancyr.  "  privato  solo." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  149 

not  naturally  mild,  or  the  infirmities  of  his  health  made  him 
irritable,  and  he  sometimes  forgot  his  usual  discretion.  On 
one  occasion  he  had  brought  a  charge  against  a  knight  for 
having  squandered  his  patrimony.  The  accused  proved  that 
he  had,  on  the  contrary,  augmented  it.  Well,  replied  the 
emperor,  annoyed  at  his  error,  but  at  least  you  are  living  in 
celibacy  in  defiance  of  recent  enactments.  The  man  could  re- 
ply that,  on  the  contrary,  he  was  married,  and  was  the  father 
of  three  legitimate  children.  The  inquisitor  was  silenced ; 
but  the  accused,  not  satisfied  with  his  triumph,  added  aloud, 
Ccesar,  when  next  you  listen  to  charges  against  good  citizens, 
see  that  your  informants  themselves  are  honest  men.1 

The  time  indeed  was  not  far  distant,  when  the  majesty  of 
the  emperor,  and  the  sanctity  of  the  tribunitian  power,  would 
demand  a  severe  account  for  freedoms  far  more  Freedom  of 
innocent  than  these ;  but  at  present,  little  or  no  ^unseno/to 
restraint  was  imposed  upon  the  moroseness  of  Ausustu8- 
disappointed  patriots  or  place-hunters.  The  examples  of 
Maecenas  himself,  the  minister  in  whom  Augustus  most  con- 
fided, might  be  pleaded  in  defence  of  a  liberty  of  speech 
which  must  appear  offensive  and  inexcusable  to  our  modern 
notions.  This  shrewd  adviser  was  encouraged  to  keep  close 
watch  on  his  master's  hasty  and  arbitrary  temper,  and  recall 
him,  when  requisite,  to  a  better  mood.  Once  when  the  em- 
peror was  presiding  at  a  criminal  trial,  and  was  about  to  sen- 
tence to  death  a  number  of  culprits,  Maecenas,  it  is  said, 
sought  to  speak  with  him  in  private,  but  being  prevented  by 
the  crowd,  he  tore  a  leaf  from  his  tablets,  wrote  hastily  upon 
it,  Up,  hangman,  and  threw  it  dexterously  into  the  folds  of 
the  emperor's  robe.  Augustus  opened  and  read  the  paper, 
and  quitted  the  tribunal  without  a  word.3  He  was  pleased, 
we  are  assured,  when  he  received  such  corrections  as  these, 
though  we  may  well  believe  it  was  only  in  certain  moods,  well 
understood  by  those  about  him,  and  by  certain  persons  under 
peculiar  relations  to  him,  that  such  liberties  could  safely  be 
taken. 

1  Maerob,  Saturn,  ii.  4.  9  Macrob.  I.  c.  ;  Dion,  Iv.  7. 


150  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  influence  indeed  which  this  shrewd  adviser  exercised 
upon  Augustus,  and  through  him  upon  public  affairs,  was 
Easiness  of  strongly  characteristic  of  the  circumstances  of 
fed^y'the  chfcf  tne  period.  Maecenas  was  a  disciple  of  the 
men  of  the  day.  g^oi  of  Balbus  and  Oppius,  Matius  and  Pansa, 
the  mild  and  courtly  favourites  of  the  elder  Caesar,  whose 
habits  and  temper  had  marked  a  reaction  from  the  rough 
and  bold  self-assertion  of  the  men  directly  preceding  them. 
Caesar  himself,  whose  early  life  had  been  passed  in  scenes  of 
angry  contention,  whose  associates  and  opponents  had  been 
ever  ready  with  the  fierce  retort  and  the  rude  blow,  seems  to 
have  taken  pleasure  in  his  later  years  in  reposing  himself 
among  gentler  spirits.  From  such  as  these  the  fashion  of 
forbearance  in  speech  and  action  had  descended  upon  the 
public  men  of  the  generation  before  us.  The  writings  of  the 
day  present,  or  at  least  suggest  to  us,  many  pictures  of  urban- 
ity and  delicacy  in  the  transaction  of  affairs,  and  as  it  were  a 
studied  desire  to  put  aside  the  recollections  of  strife  and 
bloodshed,  which  must  have  pressed  so  importunately  on  the 
minds  of  all.  With  the  closing,  indeed,  of  so  many  avenues 
to  aspiring  ambition,  the  interests  of  life  were  now  less  ab- 
sorbing. Men  became  more  indifferent  to  success,  less  furious 
in  their  rivalry  with  one  another ;  they  could  afford  to  tolerate 
party  differences  where  party  itself  led  to  no  political  prizes. 
Between  the  flatterers  of  the  ruler  on  the  one  side  and  the 
grumblers  on  the  other,  lay  this  important  class  of  polished 
triflers ;  polished  and  trifling  in  their  outward  demeanour, 
yet  for  the  most  part  sufficiently  in  earnest  at  heart,  and 
resolved  to  maintain  the  balance  of  the  state,  to  control  the 
discontented,  who  were  ready  to  plunge  it  into  another  revo- 
lution, and  to  shame  the  corrupt  and  venal,  who  would  have 
precipitated  it  into  the  arms  of  tyranny.  To  this  class  be- 
longed all  the  greatest  statesmen  of  the  day,  Messala,  Pollio, 
Taurus  perhaps,  and  Piso,  who  succeeded  Taurus  in  the  pre- 
fecture of  the  city.  Such  was  the  temper,  and  such,  we  may 
believe,  the  views  of  the  high-minded  Agrippa.  But  to  these 
views  no  man  gave  such  distinct  form  and  expression  as 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

Maecenas  himself,  who  for  many  years  governed  the  republic 
in  the  truest  interests  of  his  master,  by  quietly  removing  from 
his  path  the  opposition  which  might  have  stimulated  his  more 
selfish  passions.  By  teaching  the  Romans  to  be  content  with 
the  liberties  they  were  yet  able  to  retain  and  enjoy,  he  averted 
the  further  encroachments  of  despotism.  Maecenas  was  not  a 
soldier  by  profession ;  nor  did  he  understand  the  machinery 
of  military  governments.  At  moments  when  the  peace  of 
Italy  was  seriously  threatened,  Augustus  resorted  for  its 
defence  to  the  stronger  arm  of  Agrippa.  But  when  these 
crises  had  passed,  he  gave  his  confidence  once  more  to  the 
man  of  policy  and  sagacity ;  and  with  no  ostensible  post,  for 
he  never  rose  above  the  equestrian  rank,  nor  filled  any  public 
magistracy,  Maecenas  was  in  fact,  during  a  long  course  of 
years,  the  closest  and  dearest  of  the  emperor's  advisers.  To 
the  counsels  of  this  minister  the  Romans  ascribed  Maecenas  repre- 
the  subtle  policy  by  which  Augustus  gathered  Augusts  con8-' 
into  his  single  hand  the  functions  of  the  magis-  Bervation- 
tracy  and  the  legislature.  If  the  imperator  actually  delib- 
erated on  resigning  his  extraordinary  powers,  it  was  Maecenas 
who  was  generally  believed  to  have  advised  his  retaining 
them.  The  transformation  of  the  ancient  system  of  coordi- 
nate municipalities  to  the  modern  character  of  a  government 
emanating  from  the  centre  to  the  extremities,  was  reputed  to 
be  the  work  of  this  able  administrator ;  the  chief  lines  at  least 
of  such  a  change  were  drawn  by  his  hand,  and  filled  in  by 
statesmen  of  his  school  in  later  generations.  If  we  may  sup- 
pose any  difference  of  opinion  on  these  matters  between  the 
minister  and  his  master,  we  may  represent  Maecenas  to  our- 
selves as  the  exponent  of  progress,  Augustus  of  conservation, 
the  two  principles  which  throughout  the  reign  of  the  second 
Ca3sar  preserved  so  happy  a  balance.1 

The  views  of  the  statesman  combined  with  the  natural 
temper  of  the  man  in  moulding  Maecenas  to  habits  of  life 
which  engaged  the  curious  observation  of  his  contempo- 

1  The  traditional  idea  of  the  policy  of  Maecenas  may  be  supposed  to  be 
preserved  in  the  counsels  ascribed  to  him  by  Dion,  lii.  14-40. 


152  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

have  always  retained  their  interest 


first  minister  of  with  posterity.    It  is  to  be  remembered  that  he 

the  empire.  •  .  . 

was  the  first  minister^  in  the  modern  sense,  01  the 
Roman  commonwealth  ;  and  his  deportment,  not  uncommon, 
as  modern  tunes  bear  witness,  in  men  of  his  class,  was  novel 
and  peculiar  in  the  eyes  of  a  generation  born  under  the  free 
republic.  The  republican  statesman  of  ancient  Rome,  an  aris- 
tocrat by  birth,  a  despot  by  his  military  training,  was  char- 
acterized by  strong  self-assertion,  and  rude  independence  of 
sentiment  and  manner.  He  was  active,  earnest,  and  busy  ;  he 
left  no  moment  unoccupied  ;  he  rushed  from  the  forum  to  the 
camp,  from  the  senate  to  his  study,  with  marvellous  rapidity 
and  unwearied  diligence  ;  even  the  softer  hours  he  allotted  to 
polite  conversation  had  their  definite  object  of  exercise  and 
improvement.  The  last  age  of  the  republic  brought  out  in 
the  strongest  way  the  harsher  features  of  this  unamiable  char- 
acter. The  Romans  were  hardened  by  success  more  than  they 
were  softened  by  refinement.  But  about  their  qualities,  such 
as  they  were,  there  had  been  at  least  no  disguise.  The  consul 
and  imperator  never  pretended  indifference  to  the  honours  and 
advantages  of  his  position.  His  countrymen,  he  knew,  were 
proud  both  of  the  office  and  of  the  men  who  filled  it,  and 
required  no  concession  on  his  part  to  any  envious  feelings  on 
theirs.  Believing  himself  the  greatest  and  noblest  of  his  kind, 
he  gave  the  world  to  know  it  without  reserve  or  delicacy. 
But  with  the  advent  of  the  empire  all  this  was  destined  to 
undergo  a  complete  change,  though  it  could  not  arrive  im- 
mediately. For  more  than  one  generation  we  shall  have  to 
remark  the  angry  struggles  of  the  old  Roman  pride  against 
the  dissimulation  which  circumstances  so  potently  enjoined  it. 
The  great  nobles  of  the  Augustan  age  felt  instinctively  that 
they  had  fallen  from  their  high  position,  and  ceased  to  be  the 
first  objects  of  their  countrymen's  admiration  ;  but  they 
descended  with  reluctance  from  the  pedestal  of  official  emi- 
nence, and  strove  to  deceive  themselves  with  empty  titles  and 
not  less  empty  magnificence.  Already  a  vast  revolution  was 
embodied  in  the  fatal  apparition  of  the  first  subject  of  the 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  153 

empire,  the  animating  spirit  of  its  policy,  the  controller  of  its 
laws,  and  dispenser  of  its  honours,  averring  entire  indifference 
to  all  public  distinction,  lounging  carelessly  in  the  forum, 
amidst  the  men  of  business  and  the  men  of  pleasure,  with  his 
robe  trailing  on  the  ground,  leaning  on  the  arms  of  two 
eunuchs,  chatting  with  the  chance  comers  of  his  acquaintance, 
gazing  listlessly  at  statues  and  paintings,  and  basking  in  the 
brilliant  sun  of  Italy,  or  sporting  in  song  and  political  influ- 
epigram  with  the  wits  and  poets  of  the  day.1  ^acBea0sfaMp*tcreon 
How  seductive  must  have  been  the  fashion  thus  of  literature- 
set  by  the  most  prosperous  and  most  popular  of  politicians  ! 
The  world  moulds  itself  to  the  habits  of  the  minister  more 
readily  than  to  those  of  the  sovereign  himself ;  for  the  emi- 
nence of  the  one  seems  attainable  by  duly  copying  his  beha- 
viour, that  of  the  other  is  altogether  beyond  the  sphere  of  an 
ordinary  ambition. 

Undoubtedly  in  the  manners  of  Maecenas  there  was  a  mix- 
ture of  nature  and  artifice.  Under  the  exterior  of  careless 
good  humour  he  concealed  real  shrewdness,  activity,  and 
vigilance  ;  he  was  fully  possessed  of  all  the  threads  of  party 
intrigue,  and  was  never  unprepared,  at  the  fittest  moment,  to 
baffle  any  hostile  aspiration.8  His  far-famed  patronage  of  art 
and  literature  was  not  unalloyed  by  political  motives.  The 
poets  whom  he  caressed,  and  with  whose  names  his  own  has 
become  inseparably  entwined,  were  in  fact  the  instruments, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  of  his  system  of  government ;  and 
their  encomiums  on  the  person  of  the  most  gracious  of  states- 
men, and  the  glories  of  his  administration,  were  inspired,  if 
not  by  his  gold  and  his  wine,  at  least  by  the  charm  of  his 
affability  and  the  adroitness  of  his  flattery.  The  praises  lav- 
ished on  Maecenas  by  Virgil,  Horace,  and  Propertius  are 
recorded  for  all  readers ;  but  we  know  not  what  were  the 
blandishments  by  which  he  engaged  or  retained  them.  The 
same  lax  philosophy,  gilded  with  the  brilliant  name  of  Epi- 
curus, which  Caesar  had  used  to  quell  the  remorse  of  his  fol- 
lowers, when  he  urged  them  to  trample  on  the  sanctions 
1  Seneca,  Epist.  114.  3  Veil.  ii.  88. 


154:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

which  upheld  the  frame  of  the  republic,  was  employed  by 
Maecenas  to  stifle  the  yearnings  of  ambition  and  the  murmurs 
of  discontent.  It  stimulated  activity  in  the  one  case,  while  it 
served  to  paralyse  it  in  the  other. 

The  air  of  easy  and  almost  contemptuous  nonchalance 
which  Maecenas  assumed  so  successfully  in  public  life,  stands 
His  domestic  m  curious  contrast  with  the  susceptibility  he  was 
chagrins.  unable  to  conceal  in  the  conduct  of  his  domestic 

affairs.  The  man  who  could  control  the  politicians  of  Rome 
without  an  apparent  effort,  was  himself  no  better  than  a  strug- 
gling captive  in  the  hands  of  an  intriguing  woman.  His  wife 
Terentia,  or  Terentilla,  was  celebrated  for  her  beauty  and 
caprices,  for  the  violence  of  her  temper  and  the  powers  of  her 
fascinations.  From  the  licentiousness  of  conduct  imputed  to 
her  we  may  suppose  that  she  was  unfaithful  to  him  with  more 
than  one  lover ;  but  the  interest  she  excited  in  Augustus  him- 
self was  perhaps  peculiarly  galling  to  the  uxorious  husband, 
who  was  unable  to  resent  an  injury  inflicted  by  his  master. 
Terentia  is  supposed  to  have  been  sister  by  adoption  to 
Licinius  Murena,  who  was  put  to  death  for  a  conspiracy 
against  the  emperor  in  the  year  732.1  It  was  a  remarkable 
instance  of  the  power  she  exercised  over  Maecenas,  that  she 
extracted  from  him  the  secret  of  the  discovery  his  agents  had 
made  of  the  plot.  Once  it  is  said  the  angry  husband  availed 
himself  of  the  indulgence  of  the  laws  to  divorce  her  without  a 
public  scandal ;  but  he  speedily  sued  for  a  reconciliation. 
His  frequent  and  transient  quarrels  with  her  became  a  topic 
of  general  derision.  Maecenas,  it  was  said,  married  a  thou- 
sand times,  and  every  time  the  same  woman.3  But  this  incon- 
sistency in  the  character  of  the  wariest  of  ministers  might  be 
thought  too  common  to  deserve  remark,  were  it  not  worthy 
of  observation  as  a  trait  of  manners.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
discover  such  an  instance  of  female  domination  at  an  earlier 
period  of  the  republic,  while  it  became  a  prominent  and  strik- 
ing feature  in  the  history  of  the  times  which  followed. 

The  establishment  of  the  prefecture  of  the  city  released 
1  Dion,  liv.  3. ;  Suet.  Oct.  66.  a  Seneca,  Ep.  114. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  155 

both  Augustus  and  Agrippa  from  the  necessity  of  keeping 
watch  in  the  capital,  where  they  found  it  con- 

Tnt.      -i  •  • -i       a  Adoption  of 

stantly  more  difficult  to  maintain,  amidst  flatterers  caius  and  LU- 

.         .      _  cius,  sona  of 

and  cavillers,  the  modest  reserve  they  had  pre-  Agrippa  by 
scribed  to  themselves  in  their  intercourse  with  the  "l.V.  737. 
citizens.  In  the  year  737  Augustus  had  adopted 
the  two  sons  whom  Julia  had  now  borne  to  his  son-in-law, 
in  order,  perhaps,  to  render  his  own  person  more  secure 
against  conspirators.  The  children  now  received  the  names 
of  Caius  and  Lucius  Julius  Caesar,  names  which  sufficed  of 
themselves  to  impress  the  Romans  with  the  conviction  that 
their  bearers  were  destined  to  imperial  preeminence.1  Agrip- 
pa, satisfied  with  this  mark  of  confidence,  had  already  betaken 
himself  to  the  eastern  provinces  of  the  empire,  while  Augustus 
was  preparing  again  to  inspect  in  person  the  western.  Like 
Pompeius,  the  emperor  had  experienced  the  difficulty  of  abiding 
strictly  by  his  own  statutes,  swerving  neither  to  partiality,  nor 
severity.  If  he  proposed  to  quit  the  helm  for  a  season,  there 
was  no  lack  of  pedants  to  remind  the  Romans  of  the  cele- 
brated example  of  Solon,  who  quitted  Athens  that  his  coun- 
trymen might  try,  without  fear  or  favour,  the  real  strength 
of  his  institutions.  Nor  were  there  wanting  busy  tongues  to 
whisper  that  he  was  disturbed  by  the  observations  made  at 
home  on  his  amour  with  Terentia,  and  wished  to  enjoy  her 

1  Caius,  Lucius,  and  occasionally  Sextus,  are  the  only  prsenomens  of  the 
Julian  family  that  occur  in  the  Fasti.  Every  gens  had  its  proper  prsenomens, 
which  it  repeated  from  one  generation  to  another,  and  abstained  not  less  care- 
fully from  others.  Thus  the  Cornelii  were  mostly  Caii,  Lucii,  and  Publii ; 
they  have  no  Titus  or  Quintus.  The  Claudii  have  no  Titus  or  Quintus ;  the 
yEmilii  no  Titus.  The  Quinctii  are  always  Titus,  Lucius,  or  Caius.  It  may  be 
interesting  to  remark  how  these  prsenomens  bore  reference  originally  to  nobility 
of  birth.  Thus  Caius  and  Cnaeus  =  gnavus,  "  well  born  ; "  Titus  and  Lucius 
are  the  Sabine  and  Etruscan  words  for  "  noble."  Comp.  Titius,  Tatius,  on  the 
one  hand;  on  the  other  Lucumon,  Luceres.  Marcus  =  " warrior ;"  comp. 
Mamercus,  Martius.  Spurius  (see  Donaldson's  Varron.  p.  26.)  =  "  high  born." 
Aulus  is  cognate  with  Augustus,  &c.  =  "  noble."  From  Marcus,  Lucius,  and 
Publius  we  have  the  gentile  names  Marcius,  Lucilius,  and  Publilius ;  as  from 
Quintus,  Sextus,  and  Decimus  are  formed  Quinctius,  Sextius,  and  perhaps 
Decius. 


156  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

(society  beyond  the  reach  of  curiosity.  We  may  conclude 
from  this  surmise,  whatever  other  value  it  may  have,  that 
Maecenas  now  accompanied  his  master  into  the  provinces.1 

But  in  truth  the  disturbed  state  of  the  frontiers  was  a 

sufficient  motive  for  this  renewed  activity.    Not  only  had 

many  of  the  Alpine  tribes  rushed  again  to  arms, 

Disturbances  ,  %  .      .  . 

onthefron-  and  harassed  the  colonists  of  the  Cisalpine,  but 
of  Loiiius  in  from  beyond  the  Alps,  also,  the  Pannonians  and 
A.'C.  738.  Noricans  had  invaded  the  Istrian  peninsula,  which 
now  claimed  to  be  a  portion  of  Italy.  The  Dal- 
matian tribes  were  in  open  insurrection ;  Macedonia  was 
ravaged  by  the  Moesian  Dentheletaa  and  Scordisci ;  the  Sar- 
matians  had  inundated  Thrace ;  and  lastly,  the  central  for- 
tresses of  Spain  were  shaken  once  more  by  renewed  commo- 
tions.1 The  government,  indeed,  was  not  in  any  quarter  taken 
by  surprise.  Presidiary  cohorts  were  stationed  at  every 
threatened  point  of  attack,  and  it  required  no  extraordinary 
effort  of  their  arms  to  check  and  overthrow  the  aggressors  in 
all  directions.  An  irruption,  however,  of  the  Germans,  who 
had  crossed  the  Lower  Rhine  in  considerable  numbers,  was 
represented  as  more  formidable.  Lollius,  the  imperial  legate 
on  that  frontier,  was  defeated  with  some  IQSS  and  still  more 
disgrace,  for  the  eagle  of  the  fifth  legion  was  left  in  possession 
of  the  victors.3  Augustus  hurried,  it  is  said,  across  the  Alps, 
with  the  purpose  of  marching  against  them.  But  while  he 
was  advancing  northwards,  Lollius  rallied  his  troops  again, 
and  the  Germans  thought  it  prudent  to  withdraw  from  a  col- 
lision with  the  collected  forces  of  the  Empire.  Retreating 
hastily  into  their  own  country,  they  sent  hostages  for  their 
future  tranquillity. 

Within  the  confines  of  the  Gaulish  province,  however, 
Augustus  found  a  more  fatal  enemy  than  the  Usipetes  and 

1  Dion,  liv.  19.  »  Dion,  liv.  20. 

3  Suet.  Oct.  23.,  says  the  defeat  was  "  majoris  infamise  quam  detriment!. " 
Comp.  Veil.  ii.  97. ;  Tac.  Ann.  i.  10.  The  favourable  character  Horace  gives 
of  Lollius,  Od.  iv.  9.,  is  in  marked  contrast  with  the  imputations  of  Yelleius. 
We  may  suspect  partiality  on  the  one  side  as  readily  as  prejudice  on  the  other. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  157 

the  Sigambri.    His  own  procurator,  Licinus,  had  T 

r  7  .  Iniquitous  pro- 

shaken  the  fidelity  of  the  Gauls  by  his  monstrous  ceedings  of  LI- 

•  *  emus,  the  em- 

exactions.1    This  man  was  himself  a  Gaul  by  ex-  peror>B  procu- 

*  rator  in  GauL 

traction  ;  he  had  been  captured  in  his  childhood, 
and  subsequently  manumitted  by  Julius  Caesar,  and,  as  the 
freedman  of  the  dictator's  heir,  Octavius,  had  acquired  by  his 
useful  talents  the  favour  and  confidence  of  his  patron.  Raised 
successively  to  various  places  of  trust  and  profit,  he  had  been 
promoted  at  last  to  the  general  superintendence  of  the  finances 
of  the  imperial  province.  From  Lugdunum,  the  centre  of  his 
administration,  he  had  tyrannized  over  the  whole  of  Gaul 
with  the  insolence  of  a  despot."  He  combined,  said  the 
wretched  provincials,  the  pride  of  the  Roman  with  the  avarice 
of  the  sordid  barbarian,  and  he  had  no  compunction  in  crush- 
ing by  his  extortions  the  chiefs  of  the  native  nobility.  Not 
only  did  he  exact  the  legitimate  dues  with  ruthless  severity, 
but  imposed  additional  burdens  for  the  enrichment  of  himself 
and  his  creatures.  Such,  it  was  declared,  was  his  A  ^  738 
unblushing  wickedness,  that  he  made  the  people  B- c- le- 
pay  their  monthly  taxes  fourteen  times  in  the  year.  December, 
he  said,  is  clearly  the  tenth,  not  the  twelfth  month.  I  demand 
the  quotas  of  two  months  more,  which  I  will  call  Augusti.3 
When  at  last  complaints  of  this  injustice  reached  the  ears  of 
the  emperor,  he  was  inclined  to  sympathize  with  the  oppressed 
provincials,  and  ashamed  of  the  confidence  he  had  reposed  in  a 
culprit  so  odious.  On  reaching  Lugdunum,  he  required  his  pro- 
curator to  render  an  account  of  his  transactions.  Augustus  re- 

•D    ^   T-   •  A.   u    £    J'        r.'  v  pairs  to  Lugdu- 

r$ut  Licinus,  we  are  told,  finding  his  position  pre-  num. 

1  Dion,  liv.  21.,  calls  this  man  Licinius,  but  as  the  freedman  of  Cassar  it  is 
more  probable  that  he  took  the  gentile  name  of  Julius.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  scholiast  on  Juvenal  identifies  him  with  the  Licinus  cited  as  an  example 
of  enormous  wealth  by  Seneca,  Persius,  and  his  author  in  various  places.  The 
reading  in  Suet.  Oct.  67.  Licinium  Enceladum  seems  to  be  corrupt. 

3  Senec.  Ludus  in  Claud.  6. :  "  Lugduni  ....  ubi  Licinius  multoa  annos 
regnavit."  Seneca  might  have  applied  to  him  the  proverb  which  he  reserves 
for  the  emperor  Claudius:  " Gallum  in  suo  sterquilinio  plurimum  posse." 

3  Such  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  Dion,  who  expresses  himself  rather 
confusedly. 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

carious,  invited  his  master  to  visit  him  at  his  house,  and  there 
exposing  to  his  view  the  hoards  he  had  accumulated,  insin- 
uated that  all  these  treasures,  extorted  from  the  public  ene- 
my, he  had  amassed  for  the  service  of  the  emperor  himself. 
Augustus  acknowledged  the  policy  of  the  device,  and  accepted 
the  splendid  bribe.  Licinus  continued  to  advance  in  his  pros- 
perous career,  maintaining  himself  in  favour  by  the  occasional 
contribution  of  great  sums  to  public  works  in  Rome,  where 
the  basilica  of  Julius  Caesar  was  completed  principally  at  this 
freedman's  expense.1  He  acquired  the  reputation  of  the  rich- 
est of  Roman  upstarts ;  and  when  he  died,  at  a  great  age, 
after  surviving  Augustus  himself,  his  marble  sepulchre  was 
contrasted,  with  bitter  indignation,  with  the  humble  grave  of 
a  Cato,  and  the  unsheltered  bier  of  a  Pompeius.9 

The  emperor  prolonged  his  residence  in  Gaul  through  the 
years  739  and  740,  and  finally  completed  the  arrangements 
Augustus  pro-  connected  with  the  organization  of  the  province. 
!nn§8auii8  8tay  His  system  of  government  required  him  to  divide 
A.  u.  739, 740.  his  time  almost  equally  at  home  and  abroad :  he 
remembered  that  he  was  imperator  as  well  as  princeps,  that 
he  wielded  the  proconsular  power  as  well  as  the  tribunitian. 
The  position  of  Gaul,  moreover,  lying  between  the  hostile 
zones  of  Germany  and  Vindelicia,  demanded  more  than  ordi- 
nary vigilance.  Immense  preparations  were  now  in  progress 
for  the  effective  subjugation  of  both  those  regions,  and  for 
binding  the  Rhine  and  Danube  together  by  a  chain  of  Roman 
outposts.  It  was  from  Gaul,  the  great  storehouse  of  men  and 

1  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  4. ;  Schol.  ad  Juven.  i.  109. 

5  Comp.  the  epigram  of  Varro  Atacinus  quoted  by  the  scholiast  on  Per- 
sius,  ii.  86. : 

"  Marmoreo  Licinus  tumulo  jacet;  et  Cato  parvo ; 
Pompeius  nullo :  quis  putet  esse  Deos  ?  " 

The  freedmen  of  the  great  nobles  had  already  become  notorious  under  the 
republic  for  the  wealth  they  had  been  permitted  to  accumulate.  Such  was  the 
case  especially  with  Chrysogonus,  Heron,  Amphion,  Hipparchus,  and  Demetrius, 
the  freedmen  of  Sulla,  Lucullus,  Catulus,  Antonius,  and  Pompeius.  Comp. 
Plin.  H.  N.  xxxv.  18.  But  the  reign  of  the  freedmen  in  Rome  was  yet  to 
come. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  159 

material,  that  the  resources  for  many  future  campaigns  were 
principally  to  be  drawn.  We  may  believe  that  the  emperor's 
presence  there,  together  with  the  attitude  assumed  by  his 
legions  on  the  frontier,  sufficed  to  keep  the  Germans  in  check, 
and  prevent  any  cooperation  from  that  quarter  with  the  tribes 
which  the  Romans  were  at  the  same  time  assailing  in  the 
south.  The  exploits  of  the  lieutenants  of  Augustus  in  the 
western  Alps  had  secured  the  passes  into  Gaul,  but  those 
which  led  into  Germany  and  Pannonia  were  still  in  the  hands 
of  the  barbarians,  and  the  communications  of  Rome  with  her 
legions  in  the  valleys  of  the  Save  and  Danube  lay  often  at  the 
mercy  of  these  unmanageable  hordes.  The  Alps  from  the 
Simplon  pass  to  the  sources  of  the  Drave  were  Formidable  po- 
occupied  by  the  Rhaetians.  Beyond  the  Inn  and  Kh^tianB^nd 
the  Lake  of  Constance,  the  plain  which  slopes  vindeiiciane. 
gently  towards  the  Danube  was  known  by  the  name  of  Vin- 
delicia.  Styria,  the  Kammergut  of  Salzburg,  and  the  south- 
ern half  of  the  Austrian  Archduchy,  belonged  to  the  tribes  of 
Noricum,  while  the  passes  between  that  country  and  Italy 
were  held  by  the  Carnians.  The  rich  plains  of  the  Cisalpine 
offered  a  tempting  prey  to  these  hungry  mountaineers,  and 
the  honour,  as  well  as  the  security,  of  Italy  demanded  their 
thorough  subjugation.  Nor  was  it  less  important  to  extin- 
guish the  sparks  of  freedom  still  visible  from  the  seats  of  the 
conquered  Gauls.  But  these  rude  warriors  were  not  terrified 
into  submission  by  the  memorable  chastisement  of  the  Salassi ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  were  rather  exasperated  by  the  treach- 
ery which  accompanied  it,  and  retorted  the  cruelty  of  the  con- 
querors with  no  less  shocking  barbarity. 

Under  these  circumstances  cause  of  warfare  was  never 
wanting  on  either  side,  but  the  Romans,  as  usual,  pretended 
that  they  were  provoked  to  hostilities  by  intoler-  campaigns  of 
able  aggressions.1     The  Camuni  and  Vennones,  ^iSs'in  theTi" 
the  people  of  the  central  regions  of  the  Alps,  Eastern  Alps. 

1  Dion,  liv.  22. :  Kal  ravra  juec  ical  ffvvT\6rj  irojy  TO?J  owe  eWirdVSots  itoitiv  4S6- 
KOVV,  irav  5«  5)j  TO  tipper  TUV  a\tffKOfifvti>v  oi»x  STJ  TO  <f>aif6/j.evov,  aAAi  Kal  TO 
ii>  roTj  yaffTpdffii>  en  ruv  yvraiKuv  ov,  [J.avTfia.is  na\v  avevpiffKOvres,  e<f>6etpov. 


160  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

were  the  first  attacked.  P.  Silius  engaged  these  tribes  in  738, 
and  worsted,  not  them  only,  but  the  Noricans  and  Pannonians 
also,  who  had  made  an  incursion  into  Istria.1  The  year  fol- 
lowing it  was  resolved  to  follow  up  these  successes  with 
method  and  perseverance.  Drusus,  the  emperor's  younger 
stepson,  now  in  his  twenty-third  year,  took  the  command  of 
the  legions  from  Silius,  overthrew  the  Rhatians  in  the  Tri- 
dentine  Alps,  traversed  the  Brenner  pass,  and  defeated  the 
Brenni  and  Genauni  in  the  valley  of  the  Inn.  Whether  he 
made  any  further  progress  towards  the  Danube  is  not  record- 
ed ;  it  is  more  probable  that  he  turned  westward  to  effect  a 
junction  with  his  brother  Tiberius,  who  had  been  despatched 
at  the  same  time  from  the  Rhenish  frontier  to  attack  the 
Vindelicians  in  the  rear.  Ascending  the  valley  of  the  Rhine 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  Gaulish  province,  Tiberius  had 
reached  the  Lake  of  Constance,  and  had  there  launched  a 
flotilla,  with  which  he  surprised  the  enemy  in  quarters  where 
he  least  expected  to  be  assailed.  He  penetrated  the  gorges 
of  the  Upper  Rhine  and  Inn  in  every  direction ;  and  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  brilliant  and  rapid  campaign  the  two  brothers 
had  effected  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  country  of  the 
Grisons  and  the  Tyrol.2  The  permanence  of  their  successes 
was  doubtless  assured  by  the  wholesale  slaughter  or  captivity 
of  the  wretched  people.  Strike  once  and  strike  no  more^  was 
the  maxim  of  the  Roman  imperator ;  and  perhaps  the  process 
was  merciful  even  where  mercy  was  least  intended.  But  it  is 
impossible  not  to  marvel  at  the  extraordinary  power  of  the 
Roman  arms,  which  could  thus  in  a  single  campaign  storm, 
rifle,  and  dismantle  the  great  fortress  of  modern  freedom. 
The  free  tribes  of  the  eastern  Alps  appear  then  for  the  first 
time  in  history  only  to  disappear  again  for  a  thousand  years ; 
then-  memory  was  perpetuated  on  the  monument  erected  by 
Augustus,  on  which  he  enumerated  the  names  of  four  and 
forty  conquered  nations.  A  few  of  the  bravest  among  them 
have  obtained  a  place  in  the  most  martial  of  Horace's  odes, 

1  Dion,  liv.  19. ;  Flor.  iv.  12. 

*  Dion,  liv.  22. ;  Veil.  ii.  95. ;  Strab.  iv.  6.  p.  206. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

and  swell  the  deathless  triumph  of  their  twice-fortunate  con- 
querors.1 

Having  settled  the  affairs  of  Gaul,  Augustus  made  a  final 
progress  into  Spain,  to  receive  once  more  the  submission  of 
the  Cantabrians.  Drusus  was  retained  in  com-  Augustus  re- 
mand of  the  armies  on  the  Rhine,  while  Tiberius  m^™^-0' 
was  despatched  to  Rome,  to  assume  the  consul-  BuLA;  v  741 
ship  for  741.  In  the  following  July,  the  emperor  B-°- 13- 
himself  returned  to  his  capital,  amidst  the  same  demonstra- 
tions of  flattery,  which  had  already  greeted  him  on  so  many 
former  occasions.  Cornelius  Balbus,  who,  at  the  moment  of 
his  arrival  being  announced,  was  exhibiting  shows  in  a  theatre 
he  had  recently  erected,  pretended  that  he  had  sped  his  return 
by  the  auspicious  ceremony.  Tiberius,  as  consul,  repaid  the 
compliment  by  demanding  his  opinion  first  of  the  senators. 
An  altar,  it  was  decreed,  should  be  placed  in  the  senate-house, 
on  which  incense  should  be  offered  for  the  safety,  not  of  the 
state,  but  of  its  ruler ;  but  this  token  of  respect,  the  principle 
of  which  is  recognized  under  every  modern  monarchy,  was 
rejected  by  one  who  still  called  himself  the  first  citizen  of  the 
Roman  republic.  The  day  after  his  return,  which'  had  taken 
place,  according  to  his  usual  custom,  at  night,  Augustus 
saluted  the  people  from  the  door  of  his  Palatine  residence, 
and  then,  ascending  the  capitol,  took  the  laurel  wreath  from 
his  fasces,  and  placed  it  on  the  knees  of  Jove's  statue.  That 
day  the  whole  Roman  people  were  admitted  to  the  use  of  the 
baths  gratuitously,  and  the  services  of  their  barbers  remune- 
rated from  the  fiscus.  Augustus  then  convened  the  senate  to 
receive  the  account  of  his  proconsular  acts ;  and  being  him- 
self hoarse  from  a  casual  cold,  the  recital  of  his  victories  and 
his  ordinances  was  made  by  his  quaestor.  At  this  time  he 
determined  also  the  limits  of  military  service,  the  uncertainty 
of  which  had  caused  some  discontent.  Twelve  years  were 
assigned  as  the  term  of  pratorian,  sixteen  of  legionary  ser- 

1  Horace,  Od.  iv.  4. : 

"  Videre  Rhaeti  bella  sub  Alpibus 
Drusum  gerentem,"  &c. 

TOL.  IT. — 11 


162  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

vice.1  Instead  of  lands,  for  which,  since  the  days  of  Sulla, 
the  veterans  had  been  constantly  clamouring,  pensions  were 
henceforth  to  be  given  hi  money,  an  arrangement  which  was 
accepted  by  both  the  citizens  and  the  soldiers  as  a  mutual 
compromise.  If  less  splendid  than  houses  and  estates,  these 
fixed  rewards  were  of  more  real  value  to  the  recipients,  while 
they  relieved  the  citizens  from  the  constant  fear  of  spoliation, 
which  embittered  the  glories  of  each  successful  campaign. 

While  Augustus  was  occupying  himself  with  the  affairs 
of  the  western  provinces,  the  opposite  hemisphere,  as  we  have 
Agrippa  in  the  seenj  ne  na^  committed  to  the  care  of  Agrippa. 
EaitV  737  '^ne  exigencies  of  a  government  so  widely  divid- 
B.  c.  17.  g^  especially  at  a  period  of  transition,  when  every 
state  was  resigning  itself,  with  more  or  less  agitation,  to  a 
change  from  the  fitful  licentiousness  of  republican  imperators 
to  the  systematic  despotism  of  imperial  procurators,  required 
the  personal  superintendence  either  of  the  chief  of  the  empire, 
or  of  his  direct  representative,  with  the  same  interests  as  his 
own.  Agrippa  quitted  the  city  in  the  summer  of  737,  and 
reached  Syria  before  the  winter,  accompanied  by  his  consort 
Julia,  or  followed  by  her  at  a  short  interval.  While  engaged 
in  the  administration  of  this  province,2  he  was  visited  by 
Herod  of  Judea,  who  offered,  with  protestations  of  friendship 
and  devotion,  to  escort  him  within  the  frontiers  of  his  own 
kingdom.  This  prince,  the  most  consummate  adept  in  flattery 
of  all  the  dependents  of  the  imperial  court,  had  recently 
returned  from  Rome,  where  he  had  succeeded  in  recovering 
the  liberty  of  Aristobulus  and  Alexander,  his  sons  by  Mari- 
amne,  who  had  been  kept  there  as  hostages  for  his  own  fidel- 
ity. These  youths  were  received  by  their  countrymen  with 

1  Dion,  liv.  25.  A  few  years  afterwards  the  difficulty  of  recruiting  in- 
duced the  emperor  to  increase  the  pay  of  the  praetorians  after  sixteen  and  the 
legionaries  after  twenty  years'  service,  by  which  they  were  tempted  to  remain 
longer  under  arms.  Dion,  Iv.  23.  It  would  seem  from  the  complaints  of  the 
soldiers  at  a  later  period  (seeTac.  Ann.  i  17.)  that  this  extension  of  service 
was  made,  at  least  on  some  stations,  compulsory. 

a  In  Syria  Agrippa  founded  the  colony  of  Berytus  (Beyrout),  and  made  it 
a  station  for  two  legions,  A.  c.  739.  Strabo,  xvi.  2.  p.  756. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

the  strongest  marks  of  affection  for  the  sake  of  their  much- 
injured  mother ;  nor  does  Herod  himself  appear  to  have  enter- 
tained any  jealousy  of  them.  But  they  were  all  the  more 
hateful  to  Salome  and  her  party,  through  fear  of  their  influ- 
ence over  their  capricious  father,  by  whom  they  were  already 
treated  with  the  distinction  due  to  their  birth,  and  united  in 
marriage,  the  one  with  a  daughter  of  Salome  herself,  the  other 
with  the  child  of  Archelaus,  king  of  Cappadocia.1 

Herod  led  his  guest  through  his  new  cities  Sebaste  and 
Csesarea,  which  he  had  named  in  honour  of  Augustus,  and 
displayed  to  him  the  magnificence  of  his  build-  He  visits  Ju- 
ings,  as  if  the  most  delicate  compliment  he  could  t^r^to  I^'ia 
pay  the  Roman  potentate  was  to  show  himself  Mi"°^  740 
not  afraid  to  reveal  the  abundance  of  his  resour-  B- c- 14- 
ces.  Agrippa  in  return  assured  him  of  his  security,  and  con- 
firmed to  his  subjects  the  privileges  accorded  them  by  the 
first  Caesar.  The  Jews,  it  would  seem,  were  flattered  by  the 
Roman  entering  their  city  as  an  admiring  visitor,  and  sacri- 
ficing a  hecatomb  to  their  God."  From  Judea  he  returned  to 
Asia  Minor  for  the  winter,  in  order  to  prepare  an  expedition 
for  settling  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Bosphorus.  The 
throne  of  Mithridates  had  been  seized  by  a  pretended  descend- 
ant of  the  great  king,  who  called  himself  by  the  Roman  name 
of  Scribonius,  on  his  marriage  with  Dynamis,  the  widow  of 
its  recent  occupant  Asander.  This  usurpation  was  unpalatable 
to  the  Romans,  and  Polemo,  king  of  Pontus,  was  invited  to 
overthrow  it,  and  assume  the  sovereignty  under  their  protec- 
tion. The  natives,  indeed,  speedily  ridded  themselves  of  the 
first  of  these  intruders,  but  they  were  reluctant  to  admit  the 
second,  in  support  of  whose  pretensions  Agrippa  sailed  in  the 
spring  of  740  as  far  as  Sinope.  Here  he  was  joined  by 
Herod,  whose  officious  zeal  had  prompted  him  to  follow 
his  patron  with  powerful  reinforcements.  The  Bosphorus 
now  submitted,  and  received  Asander.  Agrippa  had  no 

1  Joseph.  Antiq.  Jud.  xvi.  1,  2. 

8  Joseph.  Antiq.  Jud.  rvi.  2.  1. :  fjyev  5e  Kal  eis  rijv  ir6\iv  TWV  'Iepo<roAi»/u<- 
riav  ....  'Aiiriras 


164  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

occasion  to  proceed  farther.  He  returned  through  the  states 
of  Asia  Minor,  still  accompanied  by  Herod,  who  seems  to 
have  feared  to  lose  sight  of  him,  and  listened  at  Ephesus  to 
the  complaints  of  the  Jewish  residents,  who  resented  the 
desecration  of  their  sabbaths  and  holidays,  and  not  less  the 
robbery  of  the  tribute  they  annually  sent  to  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem.  Among  other  favours  they  now  received  was  the 
important  boon  of  exemption  from  service  as  auxiliaries  to 
the  legions,  a  privilege  conceded  to  a  few  only  of  the  most 
fortunate  communities,  and  to  no  other  entire  nation  but  their 
own.  So  early  did  this  people  manifest  their  aversion  to  the 
use  of  arms,  which  has  been  disregarded  even  in  our  own 
tunes  only  by  the  most  despotic  of  rulers.1 

But  Agrippa,  notwithstanding  the  kindness  he  exhibited 
to  his  favourites,  could  manifest,  it  would  seem,  no  slight 

capriciousness,  when  provoked,  however  unreason- 
Harsh  treat- 
ment  of  the       ably.    The  story  of  his  treatment  of  the  people  of 

people  of  Ilium.    T,.  ,  ,  ,  .      .,,  . 

Ilium  may  be  taken,  at  least,  in  illustration  of  the 
wanton  abuses  of  power  too  common  among  the  Roman  com- 
manders in  the  provinces.  Julia,  it  seems,  chose  to  bathe  in  the 
Scamander,  a  mountain  stream,  which,  as  Homer  long  before 
had  signalized,  was  liable  to  the  most  sudden  and  violent  rises 
after  rain.  The  delicate  Roman  lady  with  difficulty  escaped 
from  the  waves  which  had  well-nigh  overwhelmed  the  hero 
Achilles.  The  Hians,  who  were  not  more  prepared  for  the 
arrival  of  the  princess  than  for  the  sudden  inundation  of  their 
river,  were  surely  blameless  in  the  matter ;  but  Agrippa 
thought  fit  to  impose  upon  them,  for  their  imputed  neglect,  a 
fine  of  a  hundred  thousand  drachmas.  The  intercession,  how- 
ever, of  Herod  availed,  we  are  told,  in  their  behalf.2 

In  741  Agrippa  was  recalled  to  Rome,  after  a  four  years' 
absence,  or  as  the  Orientals  themselves  understood  it,  after 
Agrippa  re-  having  exercised  imperial  power  for  a  period  of 
»ndndec°ineTae'  ten  years,  counting  from  his  first  mission  in  731. 
triUjLm?b74i.  At  Rome  he  met  Augustus,  who  had  returned 
B.  c.  is.  about  the  same  tune.  During  his  absence  in  the 

1  Dion,  liv.  24. ;  Joseph.  Antiq.  xvi.  2.  2. 

'  Nicolaus  Damasc.  ed.  Orell.  p.  8.     Frandsen'a  Agrippa^  p.  90. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  165 

East  the  senate  had  decreed  him  a  triumph,  together  with  a 
supplication.  The  triumph  Agrippa  declined  ;  but  it  may  be 
a  question  whether  he  thus  meant  to  acknowledge  that  he  was 
only  the  lieutenant  of  the  imperator,  or  whether,  as  admitted 
to  a  participation  in  empire  itself,  he  regarded  such  an  honour 
as  beneath  his  acceptance.  Thus  Augustus  allowed  several 
of  his  lieutenants  to  triumph,  but  never  condescended  to  tri- 
umph himself  after  receiving  the  imperial  pow-  A  n  742. 
ers.1  Whatever  was  Agrippa's  motive,  the  em-  B-  c-  12- 
peror  seems  to  have  been  well  satisfied  with  his  behaviour, 
and  desired  him  to  resume  the  tribunitian  power  for  a  second 
five  years'  term.  Nevertheless  he  could  not  be  at  ease  in 
Rome,  where  Tiberius,  in  whom  he  saw  a  formidable  rival, 
was  now  consul.  It  is  probable,  moreover,  that  he  was  an- 
noyed by  the  loose  conduct  of  Julia,  whose  dissolute  man- 
ners had  become  already  notorious.  He  could  not  risk  offend- 
ing Augustus  by  repudiating  his  daughter,  but  he  was  too 
proud  to  connive  at  irregularities  committed  under  his  own 
eyes.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  quitted  the  city  once 
more  for  Pannonia,  where  serious  disturbances  had  again 
broken  out.* 

The  year  which  followed  forms  an  important  epoch  in  the 
life  of  Augustus.    It  beheld  his  elevation  to  the  chief  ponti- 
ficate, the  last  of  the  great  offices  of  the  republic 
which  remained  to  complete  the  cycle  of  his  func-  come^cMef6 

..  ,        ,•    i  >  A  A.  -it.  j.'         'j.   pontiff  on  the 

tions  as  monarch  of  Home.    At  the  same  tune  it  death  of  Lepi- 
left  him  alone  in  the  possession  of  all  their  hon- 
ours and  burdens.    The  death  of  Lepidus  removed  his  scruples 
against  wresting  the  sacred  office  from  a  living  occupant,  how- 
ever despicable,  and  early  in  742  he  became  formally  invested 
with  the  direction  of  the  national  rites,  which  he  had  long  vir- 

1  All  authorities  agree  that  the  powers  deputed  to  Agrippa  in  the  provinces 
were  in  some  respect  greater  than  those  of  any  mere  imperial  legate.  Dion, 
liv.  28.,  says  expressly,  (ntl^ov  avrf  TO>V  fnaffTaxdOt  e|w  rfjt  'Ir 


8  Dion,  liv.  28.    He  went  to  Pannonia,  Dion  says,  with  greater  powers  than 
any  Roman  officer  had  ever  exercised  abroad  before  him. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

tually  exercised.1  Meanwhile  Agrippa  had  crossed  the  Adri- 
atic, and  proceeded  with  undiminished  energy,  to  attack  the 
Pannonians,  though  in  the  depth  of  winter.  The  barbarians, 
surprised  at  the  suddenness  of  the  assault,  made  speedy  sub- 
mission, which  seems  to  have  been  accepted  without  any  solid 
guarantees.  Agrippa  returned  to  Italy  without  delay ;  but  he 
fell  sick  while  on  his  journey,  and  Augustus,  who  hastened 
from  Rome  to  Campania  to  meet  him,  found  him  already 
Death  of  Agrip-  &ead*  He  conveyed  the  body  himself  into  the 
Pa-  city,  and  pronounced  over  it  a  funeral  oration  in 

the  forum,  with  a  curtain  drawn  before  him,  because  the  eyes 
of  the  pontiff  might  not  rest  upon  a  corpse.8  The  honoured 
remains  were  then  consumed  in  the  Campus  Martius,  and  the 
ceremonies  observed  on  the  occasion  were  carefully  noted  as  a 
precedent  for  the  obsequies  of  the  emperor.  The  ashes  were 
laid  up,  not  in  the  tomb  which  Agrippa  had  designed  for  him- 
self, but  in  the  mausoleum  of  Augustus,  which  thus  opened 
the  second  time  for  his  second  son-in-law.4  Whatever  jeal- 
ousy may  at  times  have  existed  between  the  two  confederates 
(and  it  seems  impossible  but  that  the  sharing  of  their  prize 
must  have  caused  some  heart-burning  between  them),  it  was 
now  buried  in  the  family  sepulchre,  and  Augustus  lived  to 
feel  acutely,  and  to  lament  sincerely,  the  loss  of  so  faithful  a 
servant  and  so  useful  a  colleague.  He  was  not  displeased  at 
the  accents  of  popular  admiration  which  pronounced  his 
friend  the  best  man  of  his  generation.  From  the  estates  of 

1  On  the  6th  of  March,  "  prid.  non.  Mart."  Kal.  Maff.  in  Orell.  Inscr.  ii. 
p.  386. ;  Ovid,  Fast.  iii.  415. ;  Seneca,  de  Clem.  i.  10. 

9  Agrippa  died  probably  before  the  end  of  March.  Augustus  received  the 
news  of  his  sickness  while  celebrating  the  festival  of  the  Quinquatrus,  "  xiv.- 
x.  Kal.  Apr."  Ovid,  Fast.  iii.  809. ;  Dion,  liv.  28. 

3  It  is  curious  that  the  meaning  of  this  ceremonial  should  have  been  for- 
gotten in  the  time  of  Dion.    It  is  explained  by  Seneca  in  relation  to  a  similar 
scene  forty  years  later.     Cons,  ad  Marc.  15. :  "Ipse  (Tiberius)  pro  rostris  lau- 
davit  filium,  stetitque  in  conspectu  posito  corpore,  interjecto  tantummodo  vela- 
mento,  quod  Pontificis  oculos  a  funere  arceret."    But  Augustus  and  Tiberius 
were  both  pedantic  in  their  observances.     Comp.  Tac.  Ann.  i.  62. 

4  "  Condidit  Agrippam  quo  te,  Marcelle,  sepulchro." 

Consol.  ad  Liv.  67. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  167 

the  deceased,  which  devolved  upon  himself,  he  gratified  the 
citizens  with  munificent  largesses.  Agrippa  had  bequeathed 
his  baths  and  gardens  to  the  people,  whose  concern  may  be 
estimated  perhaps  by  the  report  of  omens  and  evil  prodigies 
which  were  supposed  to  attend  the  catastrophe.1 

There  can  be  little  to  regret  in  the  loss  of  the  funeral 
panegyric  which  Augustus  pronounced  over  his  friend,  which 
has  sunk  into  the  oblivion  to  which  all  such  pieces  character  of 
have  been  speedily  consigned.  It  was  more  re-  A«r'PPa- 
markable,  assuredly,  for  what  it  disguised  than  for  what  it 
revealed  of  his  character.  Yet  it  is  with  reluctance  that  we 
let  the  curtain  drop  upon  a  man  so  eminent  in  public  life,  yet 
so  much  less  known  to  us  than  from  his  public  career  he 
deserves.  There  is  no  statesman  of  the  best  known  period 
of  Roman  history  who  filled  a  large  space  in  the  eyes  of  his 
countrymen,  with  whom  we  are  so  little  acquainted  as  Agrip- 
pa. His  energy,  bravery,  and  conduct,  both  in  military  and 
civil  affairs,  marked  him  for  the  first  place ;  yet  he  was  always 
content  with  the  second.  His  countenance,  as  to  which  exists 
ing  monuments  agree  with  the  description  of  the  ancient 
writers,  was  stern  and  rough,  yet  his  tastes  were  liberal  and 
elegant."  If  we  possessed  any  notices  of  his  private  habits 
and  conversation,  we  might  acquire  perhaps  the  key  to  these 
apparent  inconsistencies :  but  no  anecdote  is  preserved  of  his 
domestic  life ;  we  know  not  what  were  his  relaxations,  or 
who  were  his  companions  in  them.8  The  only  saying  attrib- 

1  Dion,  liv.  29.  The  district  of  the  Thracian  Chersonese  (Gallipoli)  was 
a  private  domain  of  Agrippa,  which  he  bequeathed  along  with  the  rest  of  his 
possessions  to  Augustus.  Dion,  who  mentions  the  fact,  can  give  no  account 
of  how  he  came  by  this  estate. 

*  Pliny  (Hist.  Wat.  xxxv.  4.)  characterizes  his  countenance  by  the  expres- 
sive word  "  torvitas,"  and  calls  him  "  vir  rusticitati  propior  quam  deliciis;" 
at  the  same  time  he  remarks  the  taste  he  showed  in  decorating  the  city,  and 
making  the  finest  works  of  art  accessible  to  the  people.  See  above,  chapter 
xxviii. 

8  The  story  told  by  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  xiv.  28.),  that  Cicero,  the  orator's 
son,  once  in  a  drunken  fit  threw  a  cup  at  him,  is  hardly  an  exception  to  this 
remark. 


168  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

uted  to  him,  marks,  if  genuine,  the  great  spring  of  his  ac- 
tions, and  the  bent  of  his  character.  By  union,  he  used  to 
say,  small  things  become  great ;  by  division  the  greatest  fall 
to  pieces.1  Such  was  indeed  the  maxim  of  his  life ;  such  the 
motto  which  might  fitly  be  inscribed  upon  his  tomb.  His 
whole  career  was  devoted  to  consolidate  the  empire  of  his 
patron ;  and  the  small  beginnings  of  the  two  youthful  adven- 
turers waxed,  through  his  self-control  as  much  as  by  his  en- 
ergy, into  the  widest  development  of  all  human  history.  To 
this  he  sacrificed  the  objects  which  a  more  selfish  man  would 
alone  have  regarded.  The  only  token  of  personal  feeling  he 
exhibited  was  his  vexation  at  being  apparently  postponed  to 
Marcellus.  He  resented  being  made  the  third  person  in  the 
empire,  but  he  was  satisfied  to  continue  always  the  second.1 
He  gained  his  reward  in  the  well-earned  honours  of  his  life, 
and  the  unanimous  voice  of  posterity  in  his  favour  ;3  nor  less 
perhaps  in  the  seasonableness  of  his  death,  which  removed  him 
at  the  age  of  fifty-one  from  the  perils  of  the  second  place, 
and  the  risk  of  succeeding  to  the  first.4 

1  Seneca,  Epist.  94. :  "  M.  Agrippa,  vir  ingentis  animi,  qui  solus  ex  hia 
quos  civilia  bella  clares  potentesque  fecerunt,  felix  in  publicum  fuit,  dicere 
solebat,  multum  so  huic  sententiae  debere :  nam  concordia  res  parvse  crescunt, 
discordia  maximae  dilabuntur."  The  sentence  is  in  Sallust's  Jugurtha,  c.  10. 

s  Veil.  ii.  79. :  "  Parendi,  sed  uni,  scientissimus,  aliis  imperandi  cupidus."  ii. 
88  :"  Nee  minora  consequi  potuit,  sed  non  tarn  concupivit." 

8  Seneca,  1.  e.     Dion,  liv.  29. :  &piffros  -rSiv  KO.&  ia.vrbi>  Stcupavw  -yefd/xeyoy. 

*  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  vii.  6.)  supposes  him  to  have  been  unhappy,  and  con- 
nects his  sufferings  with  the  inauspicious  phenomenon  of  bis  birth :  "In  pedes 
procedere  nascentem  contra  naturam  est;  quo  argumento  eos  appcllavere 
Agrippas,ut  aegre  partos :  qualiter  M.  Agrippam  ferunt  genitum,  unico  prope 
felicitatis  exemplo  in  omnibus  ad  hunc  modum  genitis.  Quamquam  is  quoque 
adversa  pedum  valetudine,  misera  juventa,  exercito  aero  inter  arma  mortesque, 
ad  noxia  successu,  infelici  terris  stirpe  omni,  sed  per  utrasque  Agrippinas 
maxime,  quae  Caium  et  Domitium  Neronem  principes  genuere,  totidem  faces 
generis  humani :  praeterea  brevitate  aevi,  quinquagesimo  uno  raptus  anno,  in 
tormentis  adulteriorum  conjugis,  socerique  praegravi  servitio,  luisse  augurium 
praeposteri  natalis  existimatus."  The  passage  of  course  is  only  important  from 
the  sense  it  evinces  of  the  misery  attendant  upon  the  highest  human  fortune. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

THE    CHILDREN    OF    AGRIPPA.  —  CHARACTER    OF    THE    CLATJDII  :    TIBERIUS  AND 
DRUSUS. —  MARRIAGE    OF    TIBERIUS   AND    JULIA. —  POLICY   OF    THE    EMPIRE 

ON    THE    RHINE    AND    DANUBE. EXPEDITION    OF  DRUSUS   IN    GERMANY,    AND 

TIBERIUS   IN    PANNONIA. DEATH    OF    DRUSUS,    A.  U.    745. EXTENSION   OF 

THE  EMPIRE  IN  THRACE  AND  MffiSIA. TIBERIUS  INVADES  GERMANY. IN- 
TRODUCTION OF  CAIUS  OfiSAR  TO  PUBLIC  LIFE. — DEATH  OF  MAECENAS,  AND 
FINAL  REMARKS  ON  HIS  CHARACTER.  A.  U.  742-747.  B.  C.  12-7. 

A  GRIPPA  left  two  sons,  Caius  and  Lucius,  who  have  been 
JLJL  already  mentioned,  of  the  age  of  eight  and  five  years 
respectively,  and  more  than  one  daughter.1  A  The  family  of 
third  son  was  born  some  months  after  his  decease,  AsriPPa- 
to  whom  Augustus  gave  the  name  of  Agrippa  Postumus. 
The  favour  with  which  the  emperor  had  distinguished  his 
daughter's  offspring,  and  which  he  promised  to  extend  to  the 
yet  unborn  infant,  was  their  natural  right  as  scions  of  his 
own  race ;  the  claims  of  Livia's  children  on  his  affections, 
though  educated  under  his  guardianship,  could  not  really 
come  in  competition  with  those  of  Julia.  But  while  the  idea 
of  a  family  succession  was  assuming  consistency  in  the  minds 
both  of  Augustus  and  his  subjects,  the  weight  of  empire  was 
becoming  daily  more  burdensome  to  the  ruler,  who  knew  not 
indeed,  till  he  lost  Agrippa's  support,  how  overwhelming  it 

1  The  daughters  of  Agrippa  were  Vipsania,  the  child  of  his  first  marriage, 
when  yet  a  private  citizen,  with  a  daughter  of  Atticus ;  and  by  his  Csesarean 
princess,  a  Julia  and  an  Agrippina.  Of  these  two,  more  will  be  said  hereafter. 
Vipsania  soon  recedes  from  the  view  of  public  history  ;  but  it  is  remarked  of 
her,  that  she  alone,  of  all  the  children  of  Agrippa,  died  a  natural  death,  with- 
out even  a  suspicion  of  violence.  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  19. 


170  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

must  prove  for  a  single  arm.  That  untoward  event  advanced 
by  another  step  the  intrigues  of  Livia,  and  this  time,  at  least, 
without  suspicion  of  a  crime.  While  condoling  with  her  hus- 
band on  the  loss  of  his  trustiest  friend,  she  could  now  urge 
the  necessity  of  seeking  aid  from  an  active  and  tried  asso- 
ciate, and  represent  that  by  the  union  of  her  eldest  son  with 
his  own  twice-widowed  daughter,  he  might  reconcile  the 
claims  of  blood  with  the  exigencies  of  the  public  weal. 
Tiberius  was,  indeed,  already  married  to  Vipsania,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Agrippa  by  a  former  consort,  and  to  her  he  seems  to 
have  felt  a  strong  and  genuine  attachment.1  Some  struggle 
Tiberius  be-  there  may  have  been  in  his  mind  between  feeling 
juua^nd  an<l  ambition,  but  the  demands  of  Augustus  and 
fo^Fmarrii^e'  ^e  importunities  of  his  mother,  whose  influence 
to  AauD742a<  over  n™-  was  a^  ^  times  overwhelming,  silenced 
B.  c.  12.  every  scruple.  The  youngest  of  Agrippa's  child- 
ren had  not  yet  seen  the  light  when  the  mother  was  betrothed 
to  her  third  husband.  But  the  Pannonians  had  resumed  their 
arms  on  the  news  of  their  conqueror's  death ;  and  in  the 
decent  interval  which  was  yet  to  elapse  before  the  marriage 
could  be  completed,  Tiberius  was  directed  to  conduct  a  fresh 
campaign  against  these  inveterate  enemies.2 

The  elder  of  the  emperor's  stepsons  is  destined  to  occupy 
a  large  space  on  our  canvass,  and  it  will  be  well  to  take  this 
Figure  and  opportunity  of  presenting  ourselves  with  a  sketch 
'nberiugrjnf  °f  ^  figure  and  character,  as  they  appeared  to 
his  countrymen  in  the  earlier  stages  of  his  career. 
If  we  may  trust  the  testimony  of  a  noble  sitting  statue,  dis- 
covered in  modern  times  at  Piperno,  the  ancient  Privernum, 
near  Terracina,  and  now  lodged  in  the  gallery  of  the  Vati- 


1  Suet.  Tib.  7. :  "  Non  sine  magno  angore  animi,  quum  et  Agrippinae  (Vip- 
saniae)  consuetudine  teneretur,  et  Julise  mores  improbaret." 

9  Veil.  ii.  96. :  "  Mors  deinde  Agrippae.  .  .  admovit  propius  Neronem 
Caesari;  quippe  filia  ejus  Julia,  quse  fuerat  Agrippa?  nupta,  Xeroni  nupsit. 
Subinde  bellum  Pannonicum,"  &c.  Comp.  Dion,  liv.  31.,  who  speaks  of  the 
emperor's  reluctance :  Tiftipiov  ical  &«<av  irpoer«»\eTo.  The  campaign  of  Tibe- 
rius took  place  in  the  summer  of  this  year  (A.  u.  742.). 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

can,1  which  has  been  pronounced  to  be  a  genuine  representa- 
tion of  Tiberius,  we  must  believe  that  both  in  face  and 
figure  he  was  eminently  handsome,  his  body  and  limbs  devel- 
oped in  the  most  admirable  proportions,  and  his  countenance 
regular,  animated,  and  expressive.  In  accordance  with  this 
description  the  biographer  of  the  Caesars  assures  us  that  he 
was  tall  and  big  of  bone,  with  ample  chest  and  shoulders ;  it 
is  added  that  he  was  left-handed,  and  such  was  the  firmness 
of  his  joints,  that  he  could  drive,  it  is  said,  his  extended  finger 
through  a  sound  apple,  and  draw  blood  from  a  slave's  head 
with  a  fillip.  He  was  fair  in  complexion,  and  the  abundance 
of  hair  at  the  back  of  his  head,  which  he  suffered  to  fall  over 
bis  shoulders,  was  reputed  to  be  characteristic  of  the  Claudian 
family.3  The  statue,  above  mentioned,  preserves  something 
of  a  sinister  expression  in  the  mouth  and  eyes ;  the  glance  is 
unquiet  and  scowling,  but  it  is  not  impossible  that  this  may 
be  owing  to  a  peculiarity  of  vision,  which  enabled  him,  it  is 
said,  to  see  clearly  in  twilight  on  first  awaking,  though  this 
power  did  not  continue  more  than  a  few  minutes.*  His  gait, 
we  are  told,  was  ungraceful,  his  head  being  generally  thrown 
stiffly  backward.  He  was  habitually  grave  and  silent,  and 
when  he  condescended  to  address  his  attendants,  his  words 
were  few,  slow,  and  measured,  which  gave  an  unfavourable 
impression  of  his  temper.  Augustus,  who  did  not  fail  to 
notice  this  demeanour,  and  was  feelingly  alive  to  the  policy 
of  conciliation,  excused  it  as  a  fault  of  manner,  rather  than 
of  disposition.  Pride  and  reserve,  indeed,  were  the  well- 
known  qualities  of  the  Claudii,  and  in  many  chiefs  of  the 
house  they  had  been  known  to  issue  in  a  gloomy  ferocity, 

1  Bunsen's  Rom.,  ii.  2.  69.  (account  of  the  Museo  Chiaramonti  in  the 
Vatican)  492. :  "  Sitzende  statue  des  Tiberius,  von  Kolossaler  Grosse,  gefun- 
den  zu  Piperno  im  Jahre  1796.  Neu  ist  der  rechte  Arm,  die  linke  Hand,  der 
rechte  Fuss  und  der  vordere  Theil  des  linken."  I  have  described  it  myself,  I 
fear  imperfectly,  from  personal  recollection.  There  is  another  well-known 
Btatue  of  Tiberius  in  the  Louvre. 

*  Suet.  T^b.  68. 

*  Suet.  1.  c. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xi.  37. ;  Dion,  IviL  2. 


172  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMAXS 

nearly  allied,  at  least,  to  madness.1  If  Tiberius  inherited  any 
seeds  of  this  fatal  disposition,  no  atmosphere  could  be  more 
adapted  to  develope  them  than  that  of  a  precarious  and  up- 
start court.  Surrounded  by  secret  dangers,  dubious  of  his 
own  position,  with  a  different  part  to  act  to  every  creature 
about  him,  impelled  to  suspicion  of  his  nearest  attendants 
and  distrust  of  his  dearest  kinsmen,  with  a  master  and  patron 
exacting  from  him  the  strictest  obedience,  but  requiring  at 
the  same  time  the  most  vigorous  action,  conscious,  finally, 
that  his  mother,  his  only  ally,  was  using  him  for  her  own 
ambitious  projects  rather  than  devoting  her  influence  to  his 
real  advantage,  how  little  chance  could  he  have  of  escaping 
the  doom  of  his  race  ?  Xor  do  we  know  how  early  he  began 
to  indulge  in  the  vicious  gratifications,  to  which,  at  a  later 
period  at  least,  he  was  supposed  to  have  abandoned  himself 
without  restraint,  and  which,  if  truly  ascribed  to  him,  must 
undoubtedly  have  tended  to  precipitate  any  natural  proneness 
to  mental  alienation.  Against  all  these  evil  influences  might 
be  set  the  consummate  education  he  enjoyed  in  common  with 
the  nobles  of  his  time,  combining  the  grace  and  strength  of 
scholarship  with  a  practical  training  in  affairs.*  His  deep 
feeling  for  his  wife  Vipsania,  when  required  against  his  will 
to  part  from  her,  commands  our  sympathy  and  respect.  Some 
time  after  the  divorce,  on  casually  meeting  her,  he  betrayed, 
we  are  told,  so  much  emotion,  that  the  politicians  who 
watched  him  at-every  moment  found  it  necessary  to  prevent 
another  interview.*  Meanwhile,  the  wretched  Julia,  whose 

1  Mr.  Landor,  in  his  dialogue  "  Tiberius  and  Ylpsania,"  has  suggested  that 
a  taint  of  madness  was  hereditary  in  the  Claudian  blood,  and  refers  to  the  exces- 
sive pride  and  perverse  licentiousness  of  some  of  the  name  in  earlier  Roman 
history.  But  we  must  not  lay  too  much  stress  on  this,  for  there  were  many 
families  of  the  Claudian  gens,  and  the  Xeros  had  formed  a  distinct  race  for 
some  centuries. 

1  In  his  youth  he  was  nicknamed  "  Old  Tiberius,"  for  his  precocious  discre- 
tion. Philo  Judaeus,  Leg.  ad  Cahtm,  23. :  ov  wv  oXAa  /col  tn  reos  tiv  &  *pt<r- 
/BVTTJJ  t\t-f(To,  Si  alSw  r^jv  -xtpl  T^K  ayxlvow*. 

1  Suet  Tib.  7 :  "  Sed  Agrippinam  (Tipsaniam)  et  abegisse  post  divortium 
doluit ;  et  semel  omnino  ex  occursu  visam  adeo  contends  et  tumentibus  oculis 
prosecutus  est,  ut  custoditum  sitne  unquam  in  conspectum  ejus  postea  veniret." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  173 

bridal  torch  had  twice  been  lit  at  the  pyre  of  a  deceased  hus- 
band, indemnified  herself  for  the  laceration  of  whatever  deli- 
cacy she  may  have  once  possessed  by  licentious  indulgences, 
and  outraged  the  prudery  of  Tiberius,  a  man  of  antique  aus- 
terity in  pronouncing,  at  least,  upon  the  vices  of  Roman 
matrons.1 

Of  the  younger  brother,  Drusus,  we  are  not  in  a  condition 
to  present  so  complete  a  portrait,  whether  physical  or  moral. 
Though  he  has  met  with  at  least  one  fluent  flat-  character  of 
terer,  who  has  sung  his  praises  through  a  courtly  DruBUS- 
panegyric  of  five  hundred  verses,  there  is  no  trait  of  indi- 
vidual character  or  feature  to  be  drawn  from  them,  except  it 
be  a  hint  that  his  qualities  of  feeling  and  genius  were  lodged 
in  a  form  of  ample  proportions.2  We  learn  indeed  from  other 
sources  that  the  disposition  of  the  younger  Nero  was  gentle, 
his  manners  courteous  and  popular,  so  that  both  citizens  and 
soldiers  might  forget  in  his  presence  the  prince  of  an  imperial 
family.  Hence  perhaps  the  rumour,  which  obtained  currency 
at  a  later  period,  that  he  was  not  indisposed,  if  ever  he  at- 
tained to  power,  to  restore  the  liberties  of  the  Roman  people.8 
It  was  asserted  that  he  had  actually  avowed  such  an  intention 
to  his  brother.  This  fond  rumour  may  indeed  be  justly  con- 
signed to  the  same  limbo  of  popular  imaginations  in  which 
we  must  bury  the  counsels  ascribed  to  Agrippa ;  though  it 
is  more  credible  that  such  advice  should  be  hazarded  by  the 
prop  and  champion  of  the  imperial  power,  than  by  the  youth- 
ful aspirant  to  public  honours,  whose  interests  and  even  life 
depended  on  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  his  step-father. 

I  Suet.  /.  c. :  "  Quum  ....  Juliae  mores  improbaret,  ut  quam  sensisset 
sui  quoque  sub  priore  marito  appetentem,  quod  sane  etiam  vulgo  existima- 
batur." 

II  See  the  Consol.  ad  Liv.  ascribed  to  Pedo  Albinovanus,  262. : 

"  Pectoraque  ingenii  magna  capaxque  domus." 

3  Suet.  Claud.  1.  Tac.  Ann.  i.  33. :  "  Credebaturque,  si  rerum  potitus 
foret,  libertatem  redditurus."  Comp.  ii.  82.  It  must  be  remarked  that  the 
praises  of  Drusus  were  all  posterior  to  his  premature  death,  and  might  in  some 
cases  be  stimulated  by  the  general  hatred  towards  the  brother  who  survived 
him. 


174  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

If  any  such  generous  anticipations  reached  the  ears  of  Augus- 
tus,— and  Tiberius,  we  are  assured,  himself  denounced  them,1 
— we  should  hardly  hear,  as  the  constant  tradition  of  the 
Romans,  that  Drusus  was  the  favourite,  and  so  manifestly 
preferred  to  his  elder  brother,  that  he  was  surmised  to  be  the 
emperor's  actual  son.*  On  the  whole,  it  must  be  allowed  that 
the  character  we  have  received  of  Drusus  depends  on  too 
uncertain  testimonies  to  build  any  hypothesis  upon  it ;  other- 
wise we  might  readily  fancy  him  heir  by  blood  to  the  gallant 
disposition  of  a  Julius,  while  Tiberius  displayed  in  every  fea- 
ture the  harsher  lineaments  of  the  Claudian  house.1 

Such  were  the  two  pillars  of  the  imperial  throne,  on  which, 
during  the  minority  at  least  of  his  immediate  descendants,  the 

hopes  of  Augustus  seemed  now  to  rest.  He  re- 
epatched  to  quired  of  both  an  entire  devotion  to  his  interests 

and  those  of  the  state ;  he  demanded  of  both 
the  sacrifice  of  ease  and  comfort,  retaining  them  in  distant 
provinces  and  on  savage  frontiers,  at  the  head  of  his  ar- 
mies, far  from  the  pleasures  of  the  capital,  and  the  temp- 
tations it  afforded  to  unpopular  arrogance.  At  a  distance, 
he  well  knew,  their  martial  bearing  and  exploits  would  se- 
cure them  the  favour  of  the  people,  which  they  might  easily 
forfeit  in  closer  intercourse  with  them.  Accordingly,  while 
Tiberius  was  sent  to  quell  the  insurrection  in  Pannonia, 
Drusus  had  been  already  charged  with  the  administration 
of  the  Gaulish  provinces  on  the  emperor's  departure  to 
Rome/  The  nations  beyond  the  Alps  had  not  yet  learned 
resignation  to  the  exactions  of  the  Roman  officials ;  the  im- 
punity accorded,  as  they  believed,  to  their  oppressor  Licinus 
rankled  in  their  bosoms  ;s  and  the  inquisition  into  their  means, 

1  Suet  Jib.  50. ;  Claud.  1.    Hoeck  very  reasonably  discredits  this  anec- 
dote :  Roem.  Gtsch.  i.  2.  14. 

*  Suetonius  notices,  but  only  to  discredit  it,  a  rumour  that  Augustus  caused 
Drusus  to  be  poisoned  ont  of  jealousy  at  his  republican  sentiments. 

*  Tac.  Ann.  L  4. :  "  Vetere  atque  insita  Claudia?  familise  superbia." 
4  Dion,  liv.  25. 

*  The  story  of  the  enterprise  of  a  noble  Gaul  who  proposed  to  assassinate 
Augustus  in  his  passage  through  the  Alps,  refers,  perhaps,  to  the  odium  this 
transaction  excited.    Suet.  Oct.  79.:  "Vultu  erat  adeo  tranquillo  serenoque, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  175 

together  with  the  fiscal  exactions  consequent  upon  it,  which 
resulted  from  the  census  now  held  at  Lugdunum,  must  have 
fanned  the  flame  of  their  discontent.  The  Germans,  ever 
watching  their  opportunity,  were  preparing  again  to  cross 
the  Rhine  when  Drusus  invited  his  subjects  to  display  their 
loyalty  to  Augustus  by  erecting  an  altar  at  the  confluence  of 
the  Rhone  and  Saone.  Sixty  of  the  Gaulish  communities 
united  in  this  work  of  flattery.  It  was  dedicated  Altar  of  An. 
to  Augustus  and  Rome  conjointly ;  the  names  of  f>omUe8aTLug- 
the  sixty  states  were  inscribed  upon  it ;  and  the  dunum- 
colossal  statue  of  the  emperor  before  which  it  stood  was 
surrounded  by  smaller  figures  representing  so  many  abstract 
nationalities.1  On  the  first  day  of  the  month  of  August 
Drusus  consecrated  this  tribute  to  the  majesty  of  the  empire, 
and  instituted  at  the  same  time  a  festival,  which  continued 
to  be  annually  solemnized  on  the  spot  with  shows  and  music 
for  several  centuries.  To  impress  a  still  more  imposing  char- 
acter on  the  ceremony,  he  invited  the  chiefs  of  every  state 
to  attend  it,  and  prevailed  on  a  noble  JEduan  to  accept  the 
office  of  pontiff,  assisted  by  a  ministry  of  Gaulish  flamens.2 
The  worship  of  Caesar  Augustus,  thus  inaugurated  in  the 
province,  became  extended  throughout  it,  and  at  one  place  at 
least  Livia  Augusta  was  associated  in  divine  honours  with  her 
husband.3  It  was  necessary  to  confront  the  religious  principle 

ut  quidam  a  primoribus  Galliarum  confessus  sit  inter  sues,  eo  se  inhibitum  ac 
remollitum  quominus,  ut  destinarat,  in  transitu  Alpium  per  simulationem  col- 
loquii  propius  admissus,  in  praecipitium  impelleret." 

1  Strabo,  iv.  3.  p.  192.,  following  Groskurd's  reading,  which  seems  neces- 
sary for  the  sense.  Hoeck,  i.  2.  18.  This  may  have  suggested  the  allegorical 
figures  of  the  French  cities  which  surround  the  obelisk  and  fountains  on  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  at  Paris. 

a  Liv.  Epit.  cxxxvii. :  "  Ara  D.  Caesari  ad  confluentem  Araris  et  Rhodani 
dedicata,  sacerdote  C.  Julio  Vercundaridubio  J2duo."  Supposing  the  epito- 
rnist  to  have  found  Divus  Caesar  in  his  copy  of  the  original,  this  has  been 
thought  to  prove  that  Livy  had  not  completed  his  work  till  the  reign  of  Tibe- 
rius. The  altar  was  undoubtedly  dedicated  to  Augustus  during  his  lifetime, 
not  to  the  deceased  Julius.  See  Suet.  Claud.  2. ;  Dion,  liv.  32.  Gruter,  Inscr. 
p.  13. :  "  Sacerdos  Rom.  et  Aug.  ad  aram  ad  confluentes."  Thierry,  Gaulois, 
iii.  266.,  refers  to  other  inscriptions. 

*  Thus  we  read  "  Dea  Augusta  Vocontiorum :   Livise  Aug.  Dea  munic." 


176  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  the  Druids  by  another  equally  imposing ;  and  the  genius 
of  the  mighty  emperor  and  the  fortune  of  the  all-conquering 
Republic  might  exercise  on  the  imagination  of  the  cowering 
Gauls  no  less  potent  a  spell  than  the  blasts  of  Circius  and  the 
thunders  of  Taranis. 

Such  were  the  politic  measures  of  Drusus  to  quell  dis- 
affection in  his  rear,  while  occupied  in  the  task  of  chastising 
the  Germans,  and  retorting  on  their  own   soil 

lloman  for-  ,     .  .  ,  '*_      •          f  T> 

tresses  on  the  their  aggressions  upon  the  territories  of  Rome. 
The  Rhine  we  are  used  to  consider  as  the  per- 
manent boundary  of  the  great  southern  empire ;  and  that 
such  for  some  centuries  it  really  was,  is  attested  by  the  chain 
of  fortified  posts  along  its  left  bank,  which  defended  the  pas- 
sage of  the  river  from  the  spot  where  it  escaped  from  the 
mountains  of  Helvetia  to  its  mouth  in  the  northern  Ocean. 
These  fortresses  have  since  grown  for  the  most  part  into 
considerable  towns  :  Basel,  Strasburg,  Speyer,  "Worms,  Mainz, 
Bingen,  Coblenz,  Andernach,  Bonn,  Koln,  Neuss,  Ximeguen, 
and  Ley  den  are  all  probably  sprung  from  foundations  laid 
not  later  than  the  reign  of  Augustus.1  The  left  bank  of  the 
Rhine  has  always  been  the  richer  of  the  two,  and  has  shown 
accordingly  the  greater  anxiety  to  provide  for  its  security. 
The  German  side  of  the  river  has  never  been  fortified  so  jeal- 
ously as  the  Gaulish.  But  though  the  Romans  seem  thus 
early  impressed  with  a  presentiment  that  they  had  here 
reached  the  natural  limits  of  their  conquests,  there  was  a  time 
when,  under  the  guidance  of  the  impetuous  youth  who  now 
commanded  their  legions,  they  dreamed  of  extending  their 
sway  into  the  heart  of  Germany,  and  reducing  it  to  the  same 
subjection  as  Gaul  and  Spain.  The  head-quarters  of  their 
military  force  in  these  regions  were  now  removed  from  the 
Somme  or  Scheldt,  where  they  had  been  fixed  by  Caesar,  and 
transplanted  to  the  Rhine.  Detachments  of  troops  were 

Inscriptions  cited  by  Thierry.  Luc  in  Dauphine  is  Lucus  Augusti ;  Die  is  Dea 
Augusta. 

1  The  establishment  of  these  fortresses,  fifty  in  number,  is  ascribed  to 
Drusus.    Flor.  iv.  12. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

posted  in  close  communication  with  one  another  at  all  the 
stations  above  mentioned,  but  the  two  provinces  of  the  first 
and  second  Germany,  divided  by  the  Moselle,  had  each  its 
separate  military  establishment,  its  proper  prsetorium  and 
legatus. 

At  the  same  tune  the  limits  of  the  empire  had  been  per- 
manently advanced  in  another  quarter  to  the  Danube.  The 
victories  of  Tiberius  over  the  Vindelici  in  the  On  the  Dan- 
mountains  had  been  followed  by  the  advance  of  Bbe- 
his  successor  Piso  through  the  plains  which  intervene  between 
them  and  the  river,  by  the  foundation  of  the  colony  of  Au- 
gusta,1 the  construction  of  military  roads,  connecting  it  both 
with  Italy  and  Gaul,  and  the  establishment  of  fortified  posts 
along  the  course  of  the  stream.  Here  again  the  limits  of 
Roman  dominion  are  marked  by  the  position  of  the  most 
ancient  stations  on  the  Roman,  that  is,  the  southern  bank  of 
the  river.  The  sites  of  Regensburg,  Passau,  Linz,  Vienna, 
and  the  little  village  of  Hainburg,  formerly  Carnuntum,  all 
sloping  towards  the  ungenial  north,  were  adopted  for  pur- 
poses of  defence.  But  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Upper 
Danube  there  intervenes  a  triangular  tract  of  land,  the  apex 
of  which  touches  the  confines  of  Switzerland  at  Basel ;  thus 
separating,  as  with  an  enormous  wedge,  the  provinces  of 
Gaul  and  Vindelicia,  and  presenting  at  its  base  no  natural 
line  of  defence  from  one  river  to  the  other.  This  tract  was, 
however,  occupied  for  the  most  part  by  forests,  and  if  it 
broke  the  line  of  the  Roman  defences,  it  might  at  least  be 
considered  impenetrable  to  an  enemy.  Abandoned  by  the 
warlike  and  predatory  tribes  of  Germany,  it  was  The  A^  De_ 
seized  by  wandering  immigrants  from  Gaul,  many  cumates. 
of  them  Roman  adventurers,  before  whom  the  original  in- 
habitants, the  Marcomanni  or  men  of  the  frontier,  seem  to 
have  retreated  eastward  beyond  the  Hercynian  forest.  The 

1  Augusta  Vindelicorum  is  the  modern  Augsburg,  founded,  it  may  be  sup- 
posed, about  the  year  740,  after  the  conquest  of  Rhsetia  by  Drusus.      Tac. 
Germ.  41. :  "  Splendidissima  Rhsetise  provinciae  colonia."     The  Itineraries  re- 
present it  as  the  centre  of  the  roads  from  Verona,  Sirmium,  and  Treviri. 
VOL.  IT. — 12 


178  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

intruders  claimed  or  solicited  Roman  protection,  and  offered 
in  return  a  tribute  from  the  produce  of  their  soil,  whence  the 
district  itself  came  to  be  known  by  the  title  of  the  .Agri  De- 
cumates,  or  Tithed  Land.1  It  was  not,  however,  officially 
connected  with  any  province  of  the  empire,  nor  was  any 
attempt  made  to  provide  for  its  permanent  security,  till  a 
period  much  later  than  that  on  which  we  are  now  engaged. 
But  as  an  irregular  outpost  of  the  Roman  dominions  it  exer- 
cised considerable  influence  upon  the  neighbouring  barbarians, 
in  familiarizing  them  with  the  features  of  southern  civiliza- 
tion. 

When  he  had  brought  the  chief  men  of  the  various  states 
of  Gaul  together  on  pretence  of  paying  divine  honours  to  the 
emperor,  Drusus  required  them  to  furnish  him 
to  invade  with  means  for  his  projected  invasion  of  Ger- 


many. The  tribes  first  destined  for  chastisement 
were  the  Usipetes  and  Tenctheri,  whose  seats  were  on  the 
Lippe,  and  the  Sigambri  between  the  Sieg  and  Lahn.  Behind 
these  lay  the  Cherusci  on  the  Ems  and  Weser,  and  the  Chauci 
on  the  marshy  plains  which  stretch  towards  the  ocean,  both 
formidable  for  their  power  and  influence,  against  whom  he 
meditated  hostilities  at  a  later  period.  South  of  the  Lahn 
the  range  of  the  Taunus  was  occupied  by  the  Chatti,  who 
extended  eastward  to  the  Hercynian  forest  in  the  heart  of 
Germany,  and  were  perhaps  a  main  portion  of  the  people 
whom  Caesar  knew  by  the  more  general  appellation  of  Suevi. 
While  penetrating  to  the  Ems  and  "\Veser  the  Roman  general 
would  require  to  secure  his  right  flank  by  the  reduction  of 
this  tribe  also  ;  so  that  six  nations,  the  flower  of  the  Germans 
in  the  north,  were  included  in  the  young  Caesar's  grand 
scheme  of  conquest.  Augustus  had  himself  refrained  from 
advancing  the  conquests  of  the  empire  in  this  direction,  and 

1  Tacitus,  Germ.  29.,  writing  a  century  later:  "  Xon  numeraverim  inter 
Germanise  populos,  quanquam  trans  Rhenum  Danubiumque  consederint,  eos 
qui  Decumates  agros  exercent.  Levissimus  quisque  Gallorum,  et  inopia  audai, 
dubiae  posseasionis  solum  occnpavere.  Mox  limite  acto,  promotisque  pneaidiis, 
sinus  Imperil,  et  pars  proviucis-  habetur." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  179 

Agrippa  had  speedily  withdrawn  from  the  right  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  and  acquiesced  in  his  master's  policy.  But  the  ardour 
of  his  favourite  seems  now  to  have  prevailed  over  the  em- 
peror's accustomed  moderation.  He  felt,  perhaps,  the  impor- 
tance of  allowing  the  princes  of  his  family  to  substantiate  by 
popular  exploits  the  claims  he  advanced  in  their  behalf :  and 
while  one  was  employed  in  the  reduction  of  Pannonia,  to  the 
other  he  opened  a  still  wider  field  of  ambition  in  the  un- 
trodden plains  of  central  Europe. 

On  reaching  the  Rhine  in  the  spring  of  742,  Drusus  lost 
not  a  moment  in  throwing  his  army  across  it,  and  chasing 
the  Usipetes  to  their  strongholds.  But  this  in-  Expeditions  by 
cursion  was  meant  only  as  a  feint  to  occupy  the  BeaAa°d74^d' 
attention  of  the  enemy,  or  to  keep  his  own  sol-  B- c- 12- 
diers  employed,  while  he  was  himself  intently  engaged  in 
preparing  for  a  bolder  and  more  important  enterprise.  He 
proposed  to  carry  his  arms  against  the  Chauci  and  Cherusci ; 
but  he  was  anxious  to  avoid  the  risks  and  hardships  of  a 
march  through  the  forests  of  Germany,  and  preferred  to  em- 
bark his  legions  on  the  Rhine,  and  transport  them  along  the 
shores  of  the  ocean  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ems.  The  first 
obstacle  to  this  novel  and  daring  enterprise  had  been  re- 
moved, under  his  direction,  by  cutting  a  communication 
from  the  Rhine  to  the  lake  Flevus,  or  Zuyder  Zee ;  and  the 
channel  which  Drusus  opened  for  this  purpose  still  continues 
to  discharge  a  large  portion  of  the  waters  of  the  river.1  A 
flotilla  adapted  for  cruising  in  the  shallows  of  the  North  Sea 
was  speedily  equipped  in  the  arsenals  on  the  river  side,2  and 

1  This  channel  is  generally  described  as  originally  a  canal  from  the  Rhine, 
at  Arnheim,  to  the  Yssel,  a  small  river  flowing  into  the  Zuyder  Zee,  which 
now  gives  its  name  to  this  eastern  branch.  It  would  be  more  correct  to  say 
that  the  canal  connected  the  Yssel,  a  stream  flowing  into  the  Rhine,  with  the 
Vecht,  which  emptied  itself  into  the  lake.  The  communication  thus  opened, 
the  weight  of  the  Rhine-stream  turned  the  waters  of  the  Yssel  into  the  Vecht, 
and  carried  them  along  with  it  into  the  ocean.  Upon  this  subject,  and  the 
changes  which  have  taken  place  hi  the  lake  Flevus,  partly  from  irruptions  of 
the  sea,  partly  also,  perhaps,  from  the  increased  volume  of  river-water  thus 
poured  into  it,  see  Von  Hoff,  Gesch.  der  Erd  oberfldche,  i.  253.  foil. 

4  We  gather  from  a  corrupt  passage  in  Floras  (iv.  12.),  that  Bonna  (Bonn) 


180  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

as  the  season  for  operations  advanced,  the  legions  were  with- 
drawn from  the  districts  they  had  occupied  beyond  the  Rhine, 
and  embarked  for  a  more  distant  and  extraordinary  service. 
The  Frisii,  who  inhabited  the  shores  of  the  lake,  were  con- 
verted, by  force  or  persuasion,  into  allies  for  the  occasion. 
Drusus  felt  the  necessity  of  securing  their  assistance  in  his 
navigation,  or  their  succour  in  case  of  a  reverse.  Unpractised 
as  the  Romans  were  in  stemming  the  ocean  tides  and  currents, 
they  met  with  serious  disasters  in  rounding  the  coast  of  Fries- 
land  and  Groningen,  and  when  cast  at  length  by  the  winds 
and  waves  on  its  sandy  downs,  gladly  put  themselves  under 
the  guidance  of  a  Frisian  escort,  and  made  the  best  of  their 
way  home  across  the  continent.  The  approach  of  winter  fur- 
nished an  excuse  for  this  hasty  and  inglorious  retreat.  The 
invaders  had  ascertained  the  practicability,  if  favoured  by 
the  weather,  of  transporting  their  cumbrous  armaments  with 
ease  and  speed  to  the  point  they  wished  to  reach,  and  not  dis- 
heartened by  the  casual  failure  of  their  first  attempt,  they 
treasured  up  the  experience  they  had  gained  for  a  future 
occasion.1 

Nevertheless,  Drusus  determined  the  next  year  to  change 
his  mode  of  proceeding,  and  return  to  the  ordinary  tactics 
Second  cam-  °f  Roman  invasion.  Entering  again  the  territo- 
paifnu.  743.  ™es  °f  tne  Usipetes  and  Tenctheri,  he  crossed 
them  without  opposition,  the  Germans  not  ven- 
turing to  offer  resistance  in  the  field.  He  threw  a  bridge 
across  the  Lippe,  from  the  right,  as  it  would  appear,  to  the 
left  bank,  and  again  struck  boldly  forwards,  traversing  the 
country  of  the  Cherusci,  the  modern  Paderborn  and  Detmold, 

was  made  a  naval  station,  and  apparently  connected  by  a  bridge  with  a  town 
on  the  opposite  bank.  See  Art.  Gesonia,  in  Smith's  Diet.  Anc.  Geogr, 

1  This  expedition  was  celebrated  in  an  heroic  poem  by  Pedo  Albinovanus. 
A  few  of  his  lines  have  been  preserved  by  Seneca,  Suasor,  1.  The  subject 
furnished  some  obvious  commonplaces  for  the  rhetorical  taste  which  was  ad- 
vancing with  rapid  strides :  such  as, 

"  Quo  ferimur  ?  ruit  ipse  dies,  orbemque  relictum 
Ultima  perpetuis  claudit  natura  tenebris." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  181 

till  he  reached  the  banks  of  the  Weser.1  The  strength  of  the 
Sigambrian  nation,  the  most  bold  and  warlike  in  that  part  of 
Germany,  would  have  been  brought  to  oppose  him,  but  for 
the  timely  defection  of  the  Chatti  from  the  league  of  the  bar- 
barians, which  called  off  the  force  of  that  people  in  another 
direction.  But  the  Germans  had  already  learnt  the  impru- 
dence of  meeting  their  invaders  in  open  combat.  They  retired 
steadily  before  them,  or  hovered  assiduously  on  their  flanks, 
trusting  to  the  difficulty  of  the  route,  the  inclemency  of  the 
climate,  and  the  scarceness  of  provisions,  to  harass  their 
advance,  and  ultimately  turn  them  back.  All  these  circum- 
stances now  conspired  to  baffle  and  discourage  the  Roman 
leader.  Not  venturing  to  place  the  Weser  in  his  rear,  he 
assured  his  soldiers  that  inauspicious  omens  forbade  the  fur- 
ther progress  of  their  arms,  and  gave  orders  for  the  retreat. 
The  Germans,  who  were  watching  their  opportunity,  now 
gradually  closed  upon  them,  and,  after  annoying  them  by 
desultory  attacks,  at  last  closed  upon  them  in  a  narrow  gorge 
of  the  hills.  The  danger  of  the  legions  was  imminent,  for, 
so  far  removed  from  succour,  no  slight  or  partial  success 
would  have  availed  to  disentangle  them.  But  the  enemy, 
confident  of  a  complete  victory,  and  regardless  of  all  discipline 
and  discretion,  rushed  upon  them  without  concert  or  precau- 
tion ;  and  when  received  with  coolness,  and  repelled  with 
firm  resolution,  broke  their  ranks,  and  fled  with  precipitation. 
Once  more  the  Romans  could  move  freely ;  the  Germans  did 
not  again  attempt  to  close  with  them;  and  the  annoyance 
of  their  flying  attacks  was  cheerfully  borne  by  men  who  had 
just  thrown  off  the  whole  weight  of  their  onslaught.  Drusus 
halted  on  his  retreat  to  erect  a  fortress  at  a  spot  on  the  Lippe 


1  Dion,  liv.  33. :  r6v  re  'Prjvov  ^irepatciOrj,  na.1  TODS  Ouffiire'ray  KaTetrrpe- 
tyaro '  r6v  re  \o\ntiav  %Cfv£f,  teal  ey  rV  T&V  ~S.vya./j.f3p<i}v  eVf'/SaAe,  Kal  81'  OUTTJS 
Kal  is  T^V  XepoufTKi'Sia  irpoex^pT/ffe,  fitXP1  r°v  OvJffovpyov.  It  would  seem  to 
have  been  Dion's  idea,  if  he  had  any  distinct  views  on  the  matter,  that  Drusus 
crossed  the  Rhine  north  of  the  Lippe,  again  crossed  the  Lippe  from  the  right 
to  the  left  bank,  and  swept  with  a  circuitous  route  through  the  country  of  the 
Sigambri,  into  that  of  the  Cherusci. 


182  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

which  bore  the  name  of  Aliso.1  In  the  course  of  the  same 
summer,  but  not,  as  it  would  seem,  in  connexion  with  this 
campaign,  he  established  another  Roman  outpost  in  the 
country  of  the  Chatti.*  These  sufficed  for  tokens  of  victory, 
and  the  emperor  obtained  for  him  the  triumphal  insignia, 
with  the  honour  of  an  ovation,  which  he  was  now  summoned 
to  Rome  to  celebrate.  But  the  title  of  imperator,  with  which 
his  soldiers  saluted  him,  he  was  not  permitted  to  accept. 

The  conduct  of  the  war  in  Pannonia,  which  lay  nearer  to 

Italy  than  the  German  frontier,  may  have  allowed  Tiberius 

to  return  to  Rome  after  the  campaign  of  742, 

Tiberiusin  ,  .  #  •  ..i.    T   v 

Pannonia.  and  fulfil  his  engagement  of  marriage  with  Julia 
at  the  commencement  of  the  following  year.  But 
his  retirement  lasted  only  during  the  season  of  military  inac- 
tion. In  the  spring  of  743  he  again  crossed  the  Alps,  and 
renewed  his  operations  against  the  half-conquered  barbarians. 
This  campaign  was  not  unproductive  of  successes,  for  which 
the  young  prince  was  suffered,  on  his  second  return,  in  the 
winter,  to  enjoy  the  same  distinctions  as  were  also  awarded 
to  his  brother,  and  Augustus  had  the  satisfaction  of  exhibit- 
ing both  his  stepsons  to  the  people  in  the  character  of  na- 
tional heroes.*  At  this  moment,  however,  the  demise  of 
Death  of  octa-  Octavia,  the  darling  of  the  last  generation  of  citi- 
^\.v  743  zens,  snapped  another  link  which  connected  the 
Empire  with  the  Republic.4  Her  body  was  con- 
signed to  the  appointed  resting  place  of  the  Julian  family, 
after  the  honours  of  a  public  funeral,  at  which  orations  were 

1  Dion,  I.  c.  The  spot  has  been  supposed  to  be  at  Hamra,  where  the  Lippe 
is  joined  by  the  Alse,  or  at  Elsen,  where  the  Alme  falls  into  it,  about  two  miles 
from  Paderbom.  The  one  is  thirty,  the  other  .about  fifty  miles  east  of  the 
Rhine. 

1  This  fortification  is  said  to  have  been  on  the  Rhine  (Dion,  I.  c.).  It  was 
probably  between  the  Lahn  and  the  Mayn. 

*  Dion,  liv.  34. ;  Yell.  ii.  96.  Dalmatia,  which  had  joined  the  Pannonians, 
was  now  made  an  imperial  province,  and  the  senate  received  in  exchange  the 
peacefnl  regions  of  Cyprus  and  the  Narbonensis. 

4  Octavia  died,  according  to  Fischer  (Zeittafeln),  in  November  or  Decem- 
ber of  743. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  183 

delivered  over  it  by  Drusus  and  by  Augustus  himself.1  She 
died  at  the  age  of  fifty-four,  being  about  two  years  older  than 
her  brother.  Her  praises  have  been  already  celebrated  in  this 
work,  and  her  noble  qualities  are  now  once  more  referred  to, 
only  to  notice  the  respect  which  the  Romans  could  pay  to 
female  virtue,  while  their  customs  condemned  it  for  the  most 
part  to  perpetual  nonage  and  insignificance.  This  was  perhaps 
the  first  instance  of  a  woman  being  made  the  subject  of  a 
national  solemnity  at  Rome ;  it  may  be  questioned,  however, 
whether,  except  in  the  case  of  a  sovereign,  even  the  more 
chivalrous  feelings  of  modern  times  have  ever  prompted  so 
extraordinary  a  distinction. 

The  death  of  Octavia,  grievous  as  it  undoubtedly  was  to 
her  brother,  was  felt  by  him  as  a  private  rather  than  a  public 
loss.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  consulted  her  on  affairs 
of  state ;  and  since  the  death  of  her  son  Marcellus,  she  had 
become  more  than  ever  estranged  from  public  life.  His  own 
popularity,  supported  by  the  merits  of  the  young 

^   r  /iY     J  n      +1.      IT  1      1        f  Continued  pop- 

Neros,  was  still  advancing.  On  the  Kalends  of  uiarity  of  AU- 
the  ensuing  January  the  noblest  citizens  pressed  g' 
forward  with  increasing  alacrity  to  offer  him  the  customary 
presents  on  the  commencement  of  the  new  year.  Such  compli- 
ments he  was  always  proud  to  receive,  but  he  was  careful,  it 
is  said,  to  return  them  with  interest.  He  refused,  however,  to 
accept  the  sums  which  it  was  now  the  fashion  to  subscribe  for 
the  erection  of  statues  of  himself,  and  directed  that  they  should 
be  applied  instead  to  the  glory  of  the  national  divinities.  The 
people  invented  another  way  of  expressing  their  devotion  to 
him,  by  thro  whig  each  a  piece  of  money,  on  a  stated  day,  into 
the  Curtian  lake  in  the  Forum,  as  an  offering  for  his  safety.8 


1  Drusus  may  have  been  selected  for  this  office  from  his  closer  connexion 
with  the  deceased.  He  was  married  to  Autonia,  daughter  of  the  triumvir,  and 
sister  of  Julius  Antonius,  who  was  himself  married  to  the  elder  Marcella,  a 
daughter  of  Octavia.  The  body  was  borne  by  both  Tiberius  and  Drusus. 
Suet.  Oct.  61.,  places  her  death  somewhat  later,  but  the  historian,  who  follows 
the  order  of  time,  is  undoubtedly  correct. 

8  Suet.  Oct.  57. :  "  Omnes  ordines  ill  lacum  Curtii  quotannis  ex  voto  pro 


184:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

At  this  time  Augustus  began  his  strange  custom  of  sitting 
one  day  in  every  year  in  the  guise  of  a  mendicant  at  his  own 
palace-gate,  and  accepting  the  petty  coins  which  passers-by 
placed  in  his  hand.  Of  his  motive  in  this  practice  no  certain 
account  could  be  given ;  but  it  seems  to  have  had  its  origin 
in  superstitious  feeling,  and  was  generally  ascribed  to  the 
warning  of  an  oracle  or  a  dream.1 

Early  in  the  year  744,  Augustus  once  more  quitted  his 

capital  to  visit  Gaul ;  not,  indeed,  with  the  purpose  of  urging 

by  his  nearer  approach  the  conquest  of  the  Ger- 

Thlrd  cam-  J  /.        ,  . 

paign  of  Dm-     man  tribes,  for  his  views  were  still  pacific,  and 

BUS  in  Oer-          ,  .  ,  ,  ,        „ ,   _ 

many,  and  his  he  was  anxious  to  shut  the  temple  of  Janus,  for 
/  4.  IT.  745.  which  he  had  actually  issued  orders,  when  the 
report  of  fresh  disturbances  on  the  Danube  com- 
pelled him  to  revoke  them.  He  charged  Tiberius  to  defend 
Pannonia  from  an  irruption  of  Dacians  ;  but  Drusus,  at  the 
same  time,  pleaded  for  another  expedition  beyond  the  Rhine, 
and  the  emperor  yielded,  perhaps  reluctantly,  to  his  instances. 
In  745  Drusus  became  consul ;  nevertheless  he  resumed  the 
command  of  the  legions,  and  directed  his  march  through  the 
territory  of  the  Chatti,  in  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had 
provided  already  a  basis  for  future  operations.  His  views 
of  conquest  had  now  expanded  more  widely  than  ever,  and 
the  inexperience  of  his  new  enemies,  who  ventured  to  oppose 
his  advance,  and  allowed  him  to  gain  some  partial  successes, 
inspired  him  with  increased  confidence.  Beyond  the  Chatti, 
he  reached  the  habitations  of  the  Suevi ;  then,  turning 
northward,  he  threw  himself  once  more  upon  the  flanks  of 
the  Cherusci,  and,  crossing  the  Weser,  penetrated  the  Hercy- 
nian  forest  as  far  as  the  Elbe,  the  central  river  of  the  North. 
The  Cherusci,  more  prudent  than  their  southern  neighbours, 

salute  ejus  stipem  jaciebant."  This  must  be  regarded  as  a  conventional  ex- 
pression. The  coin  was  placed,  perhaps,  on  an  altar  which  stood  over  the 
sacred  spot.  Ovid,  Fast.  vi.  403.  says, 

"  Curtius  ille  lacus,  siccas  qui  •sustinet  aras, 

Nunc  solida  est  tellus,  sed  lacus  ante  fuit." 
1  Dion,  liv.  35. ;  but  he  doubts  the  story. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  185 

had  declined  to  meet  him  in  arms,  and  the  advancing  legions 
found  themselves  left  without  a  visible  enemy  in  the  depths 
of  the  wilderness.  Mindful  of  the  disasters  which  had  cloud- 
ed his  former  retreat,  Drusus  might  now  be  anxious  for 
an  excuse  to  turn  the  heads  of  his  columns.  It  would  have 
been  easy  to  appeal  to  some  imaginary  omens ;  but  the  por- 
tent which  is  related  does  not  seem,  from  its  character,  to 
have  been  a  Roman  invention.  A  woman,  it  was  affirmed, 
of  more  than  mortal  stature,  here  crossed  his  path,  addressing 
him  by  name,  rebuking  his  ambition,  and  announcing  a  fatal 
termination  to  his  career.1  The  invaders  hastily  erected  a 
trophy  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  and  retraced  their  steps, 
still  without  encountering  a  human  foe.  But  before  they 
reached  the  Rhine,  the  prediction  of  the  spectre  met  with  its 
fulfilment.  Drusus  fell  from  his  horse,  and  the  injuries  he 
received  terminated,  after  thirty  days'  suffering,  in  his  death.8 
The  camp  in  which  he  lingered,  under  the  protection  of  the 
Roman  outposts,  obtained  from  this  disaster  the  name  of 
Scelerata,  or  the  Accursed.  The  body  was  borne  along  with 
military  pomp.  At  Moguntiacura,  where  the  army  may  have 
crossed  the  Rhine,  a  monument  was  erected  in  its  honour ;  * 

1  Some  writers  resolve  this  supposed  apparition  into  the  actual  appearance 
of  a  Druidess.      Others  connect  it  with  an  alleged  German  superstition,  on 
which  Reimar  (on  Dion  in  loc.)  gives  a  remarkable  instance :  "  Augustas  Vin- 
delicorum  adhuc  visitur  in  turri  Minoritarum  imago  mulieris  fanaticae  equo 
vectae,  qua?  Attilae  pergenti  ex  Italia  in  Pannoniam  sese  furibunda  objecit,  et 
ter  terribili  voce  acclamavit,  Retro,  Attila  !  "    The  story,  I  have  little  doubt, 
was  a  later  fabrication.     There  is  no  allusion  to  it,  or  to  portents  of  any  kind, 
in  the  Consol.  ad  Liviam. 

2  Dion,  Iv.  1,  2. ;  Suet.  Claud.  1. ;  Liv.  Epit.  cxL  (more  properly  cxlii.). 
With  this  event  the  history  of  Livy  terminated,  A.  u.  745.     Drusus  was  now 
in  his  thirtieth  year.     Veil.  ii.  97. 

1  Eutrop.  vii.  13.  Games  and  military  spectacles  continued  to  be  exhibited 
here  on  the  anniversary  of  Drusus's  death.  An  altar  had  been  already  raised 
to  his  honour  on  the  banks  of  the  Lippe.  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  7.  The  soldiers  be- 
gan now  to  regard  themselves  as  a  distinct  people,  with  rites  and  heroes  of 
their  own.  Augustus  required  them  to  surrender  the  body  of  their  beloved 
chief,  as  a  matter  of  discipline.  Senec.  Cons,  ad  Polyb.  34. :  "  Modum  tamen 
lugendi  non  sibi  tantum  sed  etiam  aliis  fecit,  ac  totum  exercitum,  non  solum 
maBStum  sed  etiam  attonitum,  corpus  Drusisibi  vindicantem,  ad  morem  Roman! 


186  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

but  it  was  not  suffered  to  repose  there.  Augustus,  who  was 
still  at  Lugdunum  when  the  news  of  his  favourite's  illness 
arrived,  summoned  Tiberius  to  attend  his  brother's  couch, 
and  when  his  death  was  subsequently  announced,  charged  him 
to  convey  the  remains  to  Rome,  which  he  did,  preceding  it 
himself  on  foot.  The  emperor,  who  had  now  returned  to  Italy, 
received  the  mournful  cavalcade  at  Ticinum  in  the  depth  of 
winter.  Accompanying  the  body  in  person  to  the  city,  he 
pronounced  over  it  a  funeral  oration ;  and  after  cremation, 
the  ashes  were  deposited  in  the  imperial  mausoleum.1  The 
youthful  hero,  baffled  in  his  enterprises,  and  cut  off  so  prema- 
turely in  his  career,  was  more  than  ordinarily  fortunate  in  the 
honours  accorded  to  his  memory.  The  regrets  of  his  country- 
men were  both  loud  and  enduring ;  alone  of  all  Roman  war- 
riors he  received  a  posthumous  title  to  commemorate  his  suc- 
cesses ;  the  appellation  of  Germanicus,  which  his  son  rendered 
afterwards  still  more  illustrious,  became  the  dearest,  as  it  was 
the  last,  of  the  heroic  names  of  Rome.  The  senate  decreed 
him  a  triumphal  arch,  which  still  exists,  for  a  triumph  scarcely 
earned,  and  never  consummated ;  *  and  the  elegant  though 
feeble  verses  of  a  courtly  poet  continue  still  to  attest  his  vir- 
tues, or  at  least  the  popular  belief  in  them.3 

While,  however,  we  remark  the  signal  failure  of  the 
mighty  preparations  Drusus  had  made  for  a  vast  and  enduring 
conquest,  we  must  not  overlook  the  importance 
of  their  actual  results.  If  the  Germans  were 
neither  reduced  to  subjection,  nor  even  over- 
thrown in  any  decisive  engagement,  as  the  Romans  vainly 
pretended,  yet  their  spirit  of  aggression  was  finally  checked ; 

luctus  redegit,  indicavitque  non  militandi  tantum  disciplinam  esse  servandam, 
sed  etiam  dolendi." 

1  Suet.  Claud.  1.  Augustus  further  composed  an  epitaph  for  the  young 
Caesar,  and  wrote  a  memoir  of  his  life. 

"  Suet.  /.  c. :  "  Marmoreum  arcum  cum  tropaeo  Appia  via."  This  arch  is, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Pantheon,  the  most  perfect  existing  monument  of 
Augustan  architecture.  It  is  heavy,  plain,  and  narrow,  with  all  the  dignified 
but  stern  simplicity  which  belongs  to  the  character  of  its  age. 

*  See  the  Consolatio  ascribed  to  Pedo  Albinovanus. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

and  from  henceforth  for  many  generations  they  were  fully 
occupied  with  the  task  of  defending  themselves.1  The  Chatti 
and  Marcomanni  hi  the  south  were  thoroughly  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  Roman  invincibility ;  the  Marcomanni  even  quitted 
their  homes  in  Suabia,  to  seek  new  abodes  beyond  the  Hercy- 
nian  forest ; "  while  the  Chatti  resigned  themselves  to  the  in- 
trusion of  Roman  settlers  within  their  confines,  and  gradually 
conformed  to  the  example  of  Gaulish  civilization.  In  the 
north  the  invaders  planted  themselves  strongly  in  defensible 
positions,  and  extended  their  inroads  every  year  into  the  terri- 
tories of  the  Sigambri  and  Cherusci,  till  the  banks  of  the  Ems 
and  Lippe  assumed  almost  the  appearance  of  a  Roman  prov- 
ince, administered  by  a  Roman  proconsul.3 

To  achieve  the  work  interrupted  by  the  death  of  Drusus, 
his  brother  Tiberius  was  summoned  once  more  to  arms.  He 
had  quitted  Pannonia  to  attend  the  funeral  pro- 

••     *  v     j      i    •      .1.1.    w  •  1.J1J       Progress  of  the 

cession,  but  his  task  in  that  province  had  already  Roman  arms 

,  ,    t     -,    ,  ,. ,       .    ,          .      T  ,,.          in  Pannonia. 

been  completed  by  a  solid  victory.4  In  quelling  Thrace,  and 
the  insurrection  of  the  native  tribes,  assisted  by 
a  revolt  of  the  Dalmatians,  he  had  displayed  activity  and 
skill,  and  might  already  be  esteemed  the  most  consummate 
captain  of  his  day.  But  before  we  accompany  Tiberius  to 
the  Rhine,  we  must  cast  our  eyes  for  a  moment  on  another 
quarter,  the  repose  of  which  was  affected  by  the  wars  in 
which  he  had  been  thus  employed.  The  districts  of  Thrace 
and  Mcesia  on  the  Lower  Danube  were  not  too  distant  from 
Pannonia  to  escape  the  contagion  of  its  spirit  of  independ- 
ence. While  the  princes  who  were  suffered  to  govern  nomi- 
nally in  these  countries  maintained  the  fidelity  to  Rome 

1  Veil.  ii.  10Y. :  "Ex  magna  parte  domitorem  Germanise."  Flor.  iv.  12. : 
"  German!  victi  magis  quam  domiti  erant."  Cons,  ad  Liv.  457. :  "  Ignoti 
victor  Germanicua  orbis."  a  Strabo,  vii.  2.  p.  290. 

3  Compare  the  praise  of  Stilicho,  four  centuries  later,  in  the  pleasing 
verses  of  Claudian,  xxi.  218.  foil. : 

"  Ut  Salius  jam  rura  colat,  flexosque  Sigambri 
In  falcem  curvent  gladios,  geminasque  viator 
Cum  videat  ripas,  quae  sit  Romana  requirat,"  &c. 

4  Dion,  Iv.  2. 


188  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

which  was  necessary  for  their  existence,  the  people  them- 
selves were  little  influenced  by  such  politic  considerations. 
The  signal  of  defiance  was  raised  by  a  chief  of  the  Bessi 
named  Vologesus,  a  priest  of  the  Thracian  Dionysus,  to 
whose  worship  the  people  were  fanatically  devoted.  In- 
flamed with  passionate  superstition,  they  rose  against  the 
king  Rhascuporis,  a  loyal  servant  of  the  empire,  overthrew 
him  in  battle,  and  slew  him.  Rhasmetalces,  his  uncle,  was 
driven  into  the  Chersonese,  and  the  whole  nation  was  at  once 
arrayed  in  arms  against  the  foreigner  and  all  who  sided  with 
him.  The  Romans  conducted  themselves  with  ability  and 
resolution.  L.  Piso,  who  commanded  in  Pamphylia,  was 
summoned  from  the  other  side  of  the  Hellespont  to  make 
head  against  the  insurgents.  For  three  years  he  continued 
to  wage  war  against  them  from  Illyricuni  to  the  shores  of  the 
Euxine,  and  at  the  close  of  his  third  campaign  he  could  de- 
clare that  order  was  restored  and  the  spirit  of  revolt  extin- 
guished. The  high  honours  awarded  him  by  the  emperor 
and  senate  attest  the  importance  of  the  occasion  and  the 
merit  of  his  services.1 

With  the  year  746,  Augustus  commenced  a  third  decennial 
term  of  his  imperimn,  which  seems  to  have  been  now  renewed 
Augustus  as-  as  a  matter  of  course,  although  he  pleaded  again 
^imperial  his  reluctance  to  accept  it.8  He  still  regarded 
^Tu.  746.  the  position  of  his  Gaulish  provinces  with  anxi- 
ety ;  so  much  so  that,  while  he  invited  Tiberius 
to  complete  his  brother's  enterprises,  he  proposed  to  take  up 
his  own  residence  once  more  at  Lugdunum,  the  keystone  of 
the  great  arch  of  the  Rheno-Danubian  fortifications,  and  super- 
intend on  the  spot  the  consolidation  of  his  empire  in  the  north. 
This  was  now  the  only  quarter  in  which  he  prosecuted  offen- 
sive warfare  ;  nevertheless,  the  common  notion  of  the  pacific 
policy  of  Augustus  is  far  from  correct.  Though  he  was 
averse  from  the  bold  adventures  in  which  the  great  captains 

1  Dion,  liv.  34. ;  Veil.  ii.  98;  Flor.  iv.  12.  17.  (A.  u.  741-743.) 
3   Dion,  Iv.  6. :  juera  8f  6rj  ravra  T{JV  re  i]yf/j.ovtiav,  (coiirep  a<£ieis  $>t  eAe- 
•ytv,  firftti))  TO,  5e'«a  £nj  TO  Sfirrt 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  189 

of  Rome  perilled  their  own  lives  and  the  interests  of  the 
republic,  and  though  no  brilliant  achievements  have  given  a 
martial  colour  to  his  long  administration,  there  were  in  fact 
few  epochs  in  which  the  progress  of  Roman  conquest  was 
more  unremitting.1  Glancing  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Black 
Sea,  his  vigilant  eye  marked  every  point  on  which  the  empire 
was  assailable  in  the  north ;  and  though  not  successful,  as  we 
shall  see,  in  narrowing  its  exposed  frontier  to  the  tract  be- 
tween the  Vistula  and  the  Dniester,  as  he  may  once  have  con- 
templated, he  completed  the  line  of  its  defences  along  the 
Rhine  and  Danube,  and  advanced  the  bulwarks  of  Italy  a 
month's  march  beyond  the  Alps. 

Tiberius  crossed  the  Rhine  ;  but  no  sooner  had  he  entered 
the  German  territories,  than  the  tribes  on  the  frontier,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Sigambri,  sent  envoys  with  TiberhlB  crOBB. 
offers  of  submission.  He  directed  them  to  seek  es  ^Vm6' 
the  emperor  in  person  at  Lugdunum;  but  Au-  B-c-8- 
gustus,  who  saw,  as  he  thought,  an  opportunity  for  effecting 
a  great  conquest  without  further  risk,  refused  to  grant  any 
terms  unless  the  Sigambri  combined  in  solicitation  with  them. 
Thereupon  this  people  also  sent  some  chiefs  to  join  the  depu- 
tation ;  and  their  unscrupulous  assailant,  having  thus  got  host- 
ages from  every  state,  did  not  hesitate  to  retain  them  in  custo- 
dy, and  disperse  them  as  prisoners  among  his  fortresses.  Many 
of  the  captives,  thus  ill  treated,  slew  themselves  in  their  indig- 
nation; but  their  countrymen,  stunned  by  the  blow  which 
deprived  them  of  their  best  leaders,  seem  for  a  moment  to 
have  submitted  in  silence.  Augustus  gloried  without  shame 
in  the  happy  result  of  a  stroke  in  which  his  people,  as  he  well 
knew,  would  equally  exult.  He  allowed  the  successes  of  a 
bloodless  and  treacherous  campaign  to  be  magnified  with  the 
most  extravagant  flattery.4  Though  he  declined  to  celebrate 
a  triumph  on  the  occasion,  he  permitted  Tiberius  to  assume 

1  Compare,  for  the  policy  of  Augustus,  the  statement  of  Aurelius  Victor, 
Epit.  1. :  "  Arma  nisi  majoris  emolument!  causa  nunquam  movenda  esse :  ne 
compendio  tenui,  jactura  gravi,  petita  victoria,  similis  sit  hamo  aureo  piscanti- 
bus :  cujus  abrupti  amissique  detrimentum  nullo  capturae  lucro  pensari  potest." 

2  Veil.  ii.  97. :  "  Moles  deinde  ejus  belli  translata  in  Neronem  est." 


190  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  title  of  Imperator  and  to  enjoy  that  honour  in  his  stead. 
He  invested  him  also,  now  the  second  time,  with  the  consul- 
ship for  the  following  year.1  At  the  same  time,  he  gratified 
the  soldiers  with  an  extraordinary  largess,  on  the  pretext  of 
his  grandson  Caius,  then  thirteen  years  of  age,  having  served 
among  them  his  first  campaign.  For  himself  he  accepted  the 
glorious  prerogative  of  extending  the  pomoerium  of  the  city, 
reserved  for  such  commanders  only  as  had  enlarged  the  limits 
of  the  empire.  It  was  at  this  time  also  that  he  directed  the 
month  Sextilis,  which  had  proved  the  most  fortunate  to  him 
throughout  his  career,  to  be  called  by  his  own  appellation  of 
Augustus.9 

The  emperor  was  already  advancing  in  years  when  he 
exhibited  this  activity  in  repeatedly  visiting  a  distant  prov- 
ince.    Since  his  last  dangerous  sickness  his  con- 

Tiberins  ad- 
vances again      stitution  seems  to  have  acquired  fresh  strength ; 

into  Germany.  ,  ,  #  ±1     ±   3    j>     i      j*  i  • 

and  we  near  no  more  of  that  defect  of  his  physi- 
cal powers,  which  we  have  so  often  remarked  at  an  earlier 
period.  But  in  the  young  and  vigorous  prince,  who  aspired 
to  a  share  in  his  labours,  and  the  inheritance  of  his  preroga- 
tives, such  activity  was  more  naturally  required.  Tiberius 
hastened  back  to  Rome  to  commence  his  consulship  with  the 
beginning  of  the  year  747  ;  but  he  was  allowed  only  a  moment 
A.TT.  747.  to  repose  from  his  military  duties,  and  to  dis- 
B- c>  7-  charge  the  civil  functions  of  his  office.  Early  in 
the  spring  he  was  once  more  on  his  route  to  Gaul,  and  with 
the  arrival  of  summer,  he  had  placed  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  legions,  and  was  engaged  in  a  new  expedition  against  the 
German  tribes.  The  departure  of  Augustus  had  been  the 

1  Tiberius  had  an  ovation  A.  u.  745 ;  Dion,  Iv.  2. ;  Veil.  ii.  96.  But  on 
this  occasion  (A.  u.  747)  he  enjoyed  the  full  honours  of  the  triumph,  Suet.  Tib. 
9. :  "  Quas  ob  res  et  ovans,  et  curru,  urbem  ingressus  est."  See  also  Dion,  Iv. 
8.,  Veil.  ii.  97. :  "ovans  triumphavit,"  and  afterwards:  "  turn  alter  triumphua 
cum  altero  consulatu  ei  oblatus  est." 

*  Dion,  Iv.  6.  Cassiodorus  reports  that,  "  His  consulibus  (C.  Asinio  et  C. 
llarcio,  A.  u.  746)  inter  Albim  et  Rhenum  Gennani  omnes  Tiberio  Ncroni  de- 
diti  sunt"  (Hoeck,  i.  2.  33.) ;  but  the  extension  of  the  administration  beyond 
the  Rhine  took  place  a  little  later. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

signal  for  renewed  disturbances  among  them,  such  at  least 
was  the  pretext  put  forth  for  the  campaign  ;  but  it  was  evi- 
dently the  policy  of  the  Romans  to  seek  occasion  for  succes- 
sive attacks.  Each  succeeding  advance  of  the  tide  of  conquest 
gained  some  fresh  ground  ;  and  although  the  legions  retired 
every  autumn  within  their  own  lines,  they  left  behind  them 
traces  of  power  not  easily  obliterated.  Tiberius  had  no  ex- 
tensive plans  of  conquest  ;  he  was  satisfied  with  showing  him- 
self to  the  enemy,  and  occupying  their  territory  for  a  few 
months.  He  performed,  it  seems,  in  this  campaign  no  action 
worth  recording  ;  and  having  led  his  troops  back  to  their 
quarters,  returned  to  Rome  before  the  end  of  the  summer.1 

The  districts  nearest  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  had  been 
utterly  exhausted  by  these  repeated  invasions,  in  which  the 
invader  swept  away  every  commodity  he  could 

3   •         i     ^          -L-  rrn.      e     XT.        J.T-      i       Reasons  of  the 

carry  or  drive  before  mm.  The  further  the  le-  slowness  of  his 
gions  penetrated,  the  more  scanty  became  the  p 
objects  of  plunder,  the  more  slender  the  means  of  subsistence. 
Accordingly  each  succeeding  campaign  became  more  laborious 
to  the  troops,  and  more  expensive  to  the  government.  The 
four  expeditions  of  Drusus  had  drained  the  resources  of  the 
Gaulish  province,  and  exhausted  its  arsenals  and  workshops. 
This  was  perhaps  the  main  cause  of  the  feebleness  of  the 
exertions  made  by  his  successor.  Tiberius  was  indeed  com- 
pelled by  the  necessities  of  his  position  to  undertake  active 
operations.  The  citizens  expected  their  future  imperator  to 
maintain  by  constant  warfare  his  claim  to  their  suffrages  ; 
and  Augustus,  on  his  part,  required  him  to  conform  to  this 
expectation.  It  was  not,  we  may  presume,  the  wish  of  Tibe- 
rius to  confine  himself  to  such  trifling  enterprises.  He  must 
have  felt  the  importance  of  earning  a  great  reputation  in  the 
career  of  conquest  which  was  opened  to  him,  and  he  chafed 
perhaps  at  the  want  of  men,  money,  and  supplies  of  all  kinds. 
Nor  was  he  unaware,  that  while  he  thus  relinquished  the  en- 
joyment of  ease  and  luxury,  he  was  in  fact  distrusted  by  both 


1  Dion,  Iv.  8.  :    lv  Se  TTJ  reppaviq  ov$ei>  &£iov  ju^jttrjs   awtfrt).      Fischer, 
Roem.  Zeitt.  A.  u.  747. 


192  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  prince  and  the  people.  The  emperor  already  regarded 
with  pleasing  anticipations  the  progress  of  his  grandsons,  in 
popular  favour ;  of  whom  Caius,  the  elder,  was  but  fourteen 
years  of  age,  but  had  already  served  a  first  campaign,  and 
had  recently  appeared  also  in  a  public  capacity 

Introduction  of  J      rr.  ,  *+  .  r         ' 

Cains  casar  to  in  the  city.  During  the  absence  of  Tiberius,  the 
young  Caesar  had  occupied  his  place  by  the  side 
of  the  consul  Piso,  in  ordering  the  votive  games  on  the  empe- 
ror's happy  return.1  This  ceremony  was  followed  by  the  in- 
auguration of  some  works  of  Agrippa,  which  that  industrious 
builder  had  left  unfinished.  He  had  commenced  the  construc- 
tion of  a  spacious  hall,  in  which  the  soldiers  were  to  be  as- 
sembled to  receive  their  pay.  Its  roof  had  a  larger  span  than 
any  other  in  the  world,  though  the  Pantheon  was  already  in 
existence.  At  the  same  time  the  place  of  exercise,  which 
Agrippa  had  added  to  the  field  of  Mars,  was  opened  for  pub- 
lic recreation,  though  the  colonnades  which  were  to  surround 
it,  and  afterwards  formed,  with  their  fresco  paintings,  its 
principal  charm,  were  not  yet  completed.  Funeral  games 
were  now  celebrated  in  honour  of  this  great  national  bene- 
factor, in  order,  no  doubt,  to  conciliate  the  afiections  of  the 
people  for  his  children.  But  whether  a  Nero  or  a  Caesar 
filled  at  this  moment  the  most  space  in  the  eyes  of  the  Ro- 
mans, it  was  between  the  scions  of  the  imperial  house  that 
all  their  interests  were  divided ;  the  merits  of  private  citizens 
were  cast  into  the  shade,  and  none  of  them  presumed  to  step 
forth  and  contest  the  palm  of  popularity. 

In  this  temper  of  the  public  mind,  the  death  of  Maecenas, 
the  last  statesman  whose  name  and  fortunes  might  remind 
Death  of  Maece-  tne  R°ma«ns  of  the  days  of  the  Republic,  caused 
na9  probably  but  little  notice.  This  event  had  oc- 

curred at  the  close  of  the  year  746.  For  some  time  previous- 
ly the  people  had  remarked  a  coolness  between  the  emperor 
and  the  minister  he  had  so  long  loved  and  trusted,  whose 
counsels,  however,  as  far  as  they  tended  to  maintain  the  show 
of  ancient  forms  and  stay  the  downward  progress  of  despot- 
1  Dion,  IT.  8.  (A.  c.  747,  B.  c.  7.) 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  193 

ism,  became  less  palatable  as  they  could  be  more  easily  dis- 
pensed with.  Some  ascribed  this  decline  in  favour  to  no 
worthier  cause  than  the  emperor's  passion  for  Terentia ;  others 
asserted  that  Augustus  was  disgusted  at  discovering  the  minis- 
ter's weakness  in  allowing  his  wife  to  extort  from  him  a  state 
secret.1  It  is  easy  to  suppose  that  he  was  wearied  A  Vi  746- 
with  the  freedoms  of  a  friend,  who  could  not  B'c>8' 
forget  that  they  had  both  started  on  their  adventures  to- 
gether, and  exercised  the  privilege  of  long  and  loyal  service 
to  rebuke  his  master's  indiscretions  with  a  frankness  border- 
ing on  rudeness.  We  may  believe  that  Maecenas  himself 
became  weary  of  his  position,  which  never  had  for  him  the 
charms  which  enchain  more  vulgar  ambitions ;  for  he  had 
never  sought  to  rise  above  the  rank  of  knighthood,  and  had 
declined  the  badges  of  office,  the  trabea,  fasces,  and  ivory 
chair,  which  still  held  such  sway  over  the  imagination  of  his 
countrymen.  It  may  be  questioned  indeed  whether  any  man 
is  really  the  happier  or  the  wiser  for  divesting  himself  of  the 
common  illusions  of  mankind.  Such  of  the  ancients  as  had 
no  hope  of  the  future,  and  among  them  must  be  numbered 
the  epicurean  Maecenas,  found  sometimes,  in  the  decline  of 
life,  a  substitute  for  such  anticipations  in  a  sedate  retrospect, 
and  were  consoled  on  the  brink  of  the  grave  by  the  persuasion 
that  they  had  fulfilled  their  mission.  But  it  was  not  so  with 
the  minister  of  the  rising  empire.  His  last  days  of  sickness 
were  disgraced  by  an  abject  clinging  to  life,  long  after  he 
had  lost  all  reasonable  enjoyment  of  it."  The  disgrace  of 
Gallus,  the  early  death  of  Virgil,  the  failing  health  and  ap- 
proaching end  of  Horace  (it  is  a  question  whether  the  minis- 
ter or  his  friend  survived  for  a  few  days  only),  must  have 

1  Senec.  Ep.  19. ;  Dion,  liv.  19.,  Ivi.  7. 

*  Seneca,  Ep.  101.,  has  preserved  some  well-known  lines  ascribed  to  Maece- 
nas, in  illustration  of  his  unworthy  shrinking  from  death  : 
"  Debilem  facito  manu,  Debilem  pede,  coxa ; 
Tuber  adstrue  gibberum,  Lubricos  quate  denies : 
Vita  dum  superest,  bene  eat :  Hanc  mihi,  vel  acuta 
Si  sedeam  cruce,  sustine." 

VOL.  IV. — 13 


194  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

combined  with  other  losses  in  saddening  the  latter  years  of 
one  who  was  really  attached  to  his  friends,  and  joined  with 
the  tastes  of  a  Sybarite  some  of  the  happier  instincts  of 
humanity.  The  voluptuousness  of  his  habits  was  of  the 
most  refined  and  exquisite  character,  and  his  manners  were, 
for  the  time,  a  model  of  urbanity,  without  wanting  in  genuine 
kindliness.  But  the  delicacy  and  fastidiousness  of  his  tastes 
were  heightened  by  the  irritation  of  a  fever  which  constantly 
preyed  upon  him,  so  that  for  three  years,  he  obtained  no 
natural  rest  either  by  day  or  by  night.1  His  only  slumbers, 
it  was  said,  were  procured,  under  the  direction  of  the  physi- 
cian Musa,  by  the  distant  sound  of  falling  water,  a  rumour 
which  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  view  of  his  suburban 
residence,  which  rose  like  an  exhalation  above  the  cascades 
ofTibur.' 

The  demeanour  of  Maecenas  was  remarkable  for  its  appa- 
rent ease,  which  disarmed  suspicion,  and  opened  to  him  the 
secrets  of  his  adversaries  as  well  as  of  his  friends. 

HIB  constitn- 

tion  exhausted  It  was  difficult  to  believe  that  a  man  with  the  air 
tension  of  of  an  elegant  debauchee  was  actually  awake  to 
every  breath  of  popular  sentiment,  dived  into  the 
hearts  of  the  citizens,  and  traced  the  aims  and  motives  of 
every  political  cabal.  There  are  no  limits  perhaps  to  the 
extent  to  which  a  cool  head  and  artful  temper  may  carry 
this  kind  of  deception ;  but  such  catlike  vigilance  can  never 
be  united  with  any  real  self-abandonment,  and  little  reliance 
can  be  placed  on  the  description  we  have  received  of  the 
minister's  geniality  in  private.  "We  shall  find  reason  to  be- 
lieve, when  we  come  to  review  the  characters  of  the  litera- 
ry companionhood  which  surrounded  the  board  of  Maecenas, 
that  the  patron  was,  even  in  his  most  festive  hours,  still 

1  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  vii.  51. :  "  Quibusdam  perpetua  febris  est,  ut  C.  Maece- 
nati :  eidem  triennio  supremo  nullo  horae  momento  contigit  somnus." 

*  Seneca,  Epp.  101.  114.,  de  Prov.  iii.  9.  That  Maecenas  had  a  villa  at 
Tibur  is  a  constant  tradition,  and  its  supposed  remains  are  still  pointed  out. 
See  Eustace,  Clots.  Tour,  ii.  7. ;  Dunlop,  Hist.  Rom.  Liter,  iii.  43.  There  is 
said,  however,  to  be  no  direct  authority  for  the  supposition,  which  may  have 
been  derived  from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  lines  of  Horace,  Od.  iii.  29.  6. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  195 

playing  a  part,  and  governing  the  world  from  the  head  of  his 
table,  by  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  his  well-trained  associates. 
If  such  was  the  case,  we  perceive  how  his  earnest  activity 
admitted  of  no  actual  relaxation ;  nor  can  we  wonder  at  the 
wearing  out  of  the  vital  machine  under  the  constant  tension 
of  thirty  years  of  effort.  The  date  of  Maecenas's  birth  is 
not  accurately  known.  It  is  supposed  that  he  was  a  few  years 
older  than  his  patron,  and  may  have  been  about  sixty  at  the 
time  of  his  death.1 

There  seems,  on  the  whole,  no  reason  to  seek  far  for  the 
motives  of  the  minister's  retirement,  least  of  all  to  ascribe  it, 
with  Tacitus,  to  the  blind  agency  of  Fate.8  The 
failure  of  health  of  one  whose  whole  time  and  favour -with 
thoughts  were  thus  absorbed  in  the  duties  of  his  regarded  by 
office,  is  amply  sufficient  to  account  for  it,  with-  p' 
out  supposing  any  jealousy  or  distaste  on  the  part  of  his 
patron.  But  the  Romans  of  a  later  age  could  not  excuse  the 
appearance  of  a  slight  to  one,  on  whom  they  looked  with 
fondness  as  a  model  for  ministers.  The  views  of  policy  they 
ascribed  to  him  were  eminently  generous  and  liberal ;  he  was 
supposed  to  have  encouraged  the  expression  of  public  opin- 
ion, to  have  opened  a  career  to  all  ranks  and  classes,  to  have 
sought  out  merit  wherever  it  was  to  be  found,  to  have  made 
the  empire,  to  the  best  of  his  power,  an  administration  of  the 
best  men !  To  him,  also,  they  attributed  the  humane  coun- 
sels for  which  the  reign  of  the  triumvir  was  so  favourably 
remembered.  He  it  was,  they  believed,  that  guided  the 
author  of  the  proscriptions  into  the  path  of  clemency ;  and 
when  he  seemed  about  to  stray  from  it,  recalled  him  boldly 
and  effectively.3  Such  were  the  principles,  they  said,  which 

1  Fischer  places  his  birth,  in  common  with  other  writers,  between  680  and 
690  of  the  city.  Roem.  Zeittafeln. 

*  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  30. :  "  Idque  et  Maecenati  acciderat ;  fato  potentiae  raro 
sempiternse,  an  satias  capit  aut  illos,  cum  omnia  tribuerunt,  aut  hos,  cum  jam 
nihil  reliquum  est  quod  cupiant." 

8  The  long  political  pamphlet  which  Dion  Cassius  has  given  us,  as  a  speech 
of  Maecenas  upon  the  ordering  of  the  empire,  is  chiefly  valuable  on  two  ac- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

disarmed  disaffection,  and  rendered  the  people  contented  and 
their  chief  secure.  This  was  the  work  of  Maecenas,  and  this 
he  effected  without  spies  or  delators,  without  a  law  of  libel 
or  a  law  of  majesty.  True,  he  was  only  a  knight,  and  he  had 
succeeded  to  the  post  of  consuls  and  senators ;  but  the  gener- 
ations which  honoured  him  with  these  fond  reminiscences,  had 
been  made  to  tremble  under  the  sway  of  mistresses  and 
freedmen. 

counts :  first,  as  representing  to  a  certain  extent  the  actual  form  of  government 
in  his  own  time ;  and,  secondly,  as  recording,  to  some  extent  also,  the  opinion 
his  contemporaries -entertained  of  the  views  and  character  of  the  speaker. 
Dion,  lii.  14-40. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 


CHAPTER   XXXVH. 

THE    HISTORY    OF    ROME   ASSUMES    THE    CHARACTER    OP  A    DOMESTIC    DRAMA. — 
CHARACTER   AND     CONDUCT    OF    JCLIA,    AND   OF    CAIUS  AND    LUCIUS   CAESAR. 

AUGUSTUS   HOLDS   THE    BALANCE  BETWEEN   HIS    GRANDSONS  AND  TIBERIUS. 

DISGUST    AND     RETIREMENT     OF    TIBERIUS   TO   RHODES   (A.  U.  748,    B.  C.  6). 

DISGRACE    AND    BANISHMENT    OF   JULIA. DEATHS   OF   CAIUS   AND   LUCIUS. 

RECALL    OF    TIBERIUS   (A.  U.  757,    A.  D.  4) :     HE    RECEIVES    THE     TRIBUNI- 

TIAN    POWER   A   SECOND   TIME,  -AND     IS    ADOPTED    BY    AUGUSTUS. CONSPIR- 
ACY  OF   CINNA   AND   CLEMENCY   OF  AUGUSTUS. RETIEW   OF   THE    PERSONAL 

HABITS   OF  AUGUSTUS   IN  HIS    LATER  YEARS.      A.  U.  747,    B.  C.  7,   A.  U.  757, 
A.  D.  4. 

AT  this  period  we  seem  to  enter  upon  a  new  phase  of  Ro- 
man history :  for  the  remainder  of  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
which  extended  yet  twenty  years  further,  brought 

*  ,  ,  ?        Tha  history  of 

forth  no  great  men,  and  not  more  perhaps  than  Rome  assumes 

.  .„  ,  ,        a  •      •         i  the  character 

one  great  event,  which  will  be  related  in  its  place,  of  a  domestic 
Many   personages   of  note  and  occurrences  of      A.  u.  747. 
some  interest  will  flit  before  us ;  but  these  occur-      B' c>  7< 
rences  will  be  confined,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  afiairs  of 
the  Caesarean  family  and  palace,  and  might  indeed  be  repre- 
sented in  a  drama,  the  scene  of  which  should  be  a  chamber  in 
the  imperial  residence,  with  but  little  aid  from  the  machinery 
conventionally  allowed  for  narrating  what  has  passed  behind 
it.    The  personages  of  this  domestic  piece  should  be  a  self- 
important  and  irritable  father,  an  intriguing  stepmother,  two 
rival  heirs — the  one  gloomy  and  suspicious,  the  other  guileless 
and  indiscreet — a  daughter  whose  follies  should  serve  to  point 
the  declamations  of  her  sire  with  many  grave  and  decorous 
laxims ;  while  the  under-plot  of  a  detected  conspiracy  might 
lisplay  the  real  magnanimity  of  his  character,  and  solve  the 


198  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.747. 

perplexities  of  his  position  by  an  act  of  judicious  clemency. 
One  grave  and  national  disaster  will  break  with  a  ruder  shock 
the  course  of  these  private  disquietudes,  and  recall  us  once 
more  to  the  public  theatre,  on  which  the  great  interests  of 
mankind  are  represented. 

Amidst  these  anxieties  the  time  was  coming  when  Augus- 
tus would  deeply  lament  the  loss  of  his  discreetest  counsellors, 
The  gardens  of  from  both  of  whom  he  had  perhaps  been  partly 
the^equiiine  estranged  by  the  machinations  of  Livia  and  Ti- 
berius.1 On  the  death  of  the  last  survivor  of  the 
two,  and  the  one  to  whom  he  was  personally  most  attached, 
he  expressed  much  genuine  sorrow,  though  the  inferior  rank 
of  Maecenas  did  not  allow  him  to  make  any  public  and  nota- 
ble manifestation  of  his  grief.  In  the  time  of  their  mutual 
familiarity,  he  had  indulged  in  a  sort  of  womanish  playful- 
ness towards  his  elder  companion,  and  had  made  his  pecu- 
liarities the  butt  of  good-humoured  satire.*  MaBcenas,  on  his 
part,  gave  the  last  proof  of  affection  in  making  the  emperor 
his  heir ;  a  compliment  indeed  which  was  becoming  too  cus- 
tomary to  be  noted  as  a  genuine  token  of  regard.  The  for- 
tunate minister  had  accumulated  great  wealth,  and  among 
other  monuments  of  his  taste  and  magnificence  had  erected  a 
noble  mansion  on  the  heights  of  the  Esquiline  Hill,  the  most 
commanding  situation  in  Rome.  The  domain  of  this  resi- 
dence had  been  bounded  originally  by  the  Agger  of  Servius, 
which  extended  above  a  thousand  yards  along  the  north- 
eastern limits  of  the  city,  and  was  deemed  to  afford  it  suffi- 
cient protection,  without  the  addition  of  a  rampart  of  ma- 
sonry. With  the  increasing  security  of  the  capital  against 
foreign  attack,  this  mound  had  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a 

1  Dion,  Iv.  7. ;  Senec.  de  Benef.  vi.  32.:  "Saepe  exclamavit,  horumnihil 
mihi  accidisset  si  aut  Agrippa  aut  Maecenas  vixisset  ....  tota  vita  Agrippae 
et  Maecenatis  vacavit  locus." 

*  Macrobius  (Saturn,  ii.  4.)  has  preserved  an  amusing  specimen  of  the  im- 
perial banter,  aimed  apparently  at  the  minister's  affectation  of  foreign  finery : 
"  Vale  mel  gentium,  melcule ;  ebur  ex  Etruria,  laser  Arretinum,  adamas  Su- 
pernas,  Tiberinum  margaritum,  Cilniorum  smaragude,  iaspi  figulorum,  berylle 
Porsenae,  carbuncule  Italiae." 


B.  C.  7.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  199 

fortification,  and  now  formed  a  public  promenade,  or  at  least 
a  causeway  for  communication  from  one  part  of  the  city  to 
another.  But  the  prospect  it  embraced,  the  most  varied  and 
extensive  in  Rome,  was  defaced  by  the  charnel  field  of  the 
Campus  Esquilinus,  which  lay  at  its  feet  outside  the  city. 
Here,  between  the  roads  which  issued  from  the  Esquiline  and 
Viminal  gates,  was  the  plot  assigned  for  casting  out  the  car- 
casses of  slaves,  whose  foul  and  half-burnt  remains  were 
scarcely  hidden  from  the  vultures.  The  Accursed  field  was 
enclosed,  it  would  appear,  by  neither  wall  nor  fence,  to  ex- 
clude the  wandering  steps  of  man  or  beast  ;  and  from  the 
public  walk  on  the  summit  of  the  ridge  it  must  have  been 
viewed  in  all  its  horrors.  Here  prowled  in  troops  the  house- 
less dogs  of  the  city  and  the  suburbs  ;  here  skulked  the  soli- 
tary wolf  from  the  Alban  hills  ;  and  here,  perhaps  to  the 
doleful  murmurs  of  the  Marsic  chant,  the  sorceress  com- 
pounded her  philtres  of  the  ashes  of  dead  men's  bones.1  It 
was  high  time  to  sweep  away  this  abomination  of  a  barbarous 
antiquity,  now  become  a  source  of  pestilence  to  the  habita- 
tions which  daily  encroached  more  closely  upon  it,  as  well  as 
offensive  to  natural  feeling.  Maecenas  deserved  the  gratitude 
of  the  citizens,  when  he  obtained  a  grant  of  this  piece  of 
ground,  cleansed  it  from  its  pollutions,  and  transformed  it 
into  a  park  or  garden,  which  was  either  thrown  open  for  the 
recreation  of  the  people,  or  allowed  at  least  to  present  an 
agreeable  object  to  the  frequenters  of  the  terrace  above  it.2 
The  Esquiline  mansion  of  Maecenas,  the  roof  of  which  tower- 
ed above  every  other  habitation  in  Rome,  commanded  on  one 
side  a  prospect  of  the  ever-falling  waters  of  Tibur  and  the 
fertile  slopes  of  ^dEsula,  while  on  the  other  it  looked  down 


1  See  Horace's  Odes  to  Canidia,  Epod.  5.  17. 
»  Horace,  Sat.  i.  8.  14.  : 

"  Nunc  licet  Esquiliis  habitare  salubribus,  atque 
Aggere  in  aprico  spatiari,  qua  modo  tristes 
Albis  informem  spectabant  ossibus  agrum." 

TJpon  which  the  scholiast  remarks  :  "  In  Esquiliis  Maecenas  domum  iustruxit, 
addiditque  amcenos  hortos  perditis  prius  et  subrutis  sepulchris." 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.747. 

upon  the  smoke,  the  splendour,  and  the  turmoil  of  the  great 
metropolis.1  This  domain,  on  becoming  the  patrimony  of  the 
Caesars,  was  first  inhabited  by  Tiberius,  and  was  connected 
at  a  later  period  with  the  far  extended  precincts  of  the  im- 
perial residence  ;  till  a  new  dynasty  sought  to  ingratiate  itself 
with  the  mass  of  the  citizens,  by  converting  it,  at  least  in 
part,  into  a  pleasure  ground  for  the  public." 

From  this  time,  however,  the  affections  of  Augustus  were 
wholly  centred  on  the  members  of  his  own  family.  They 
Affection  of  were  subject  to  no  capricious  variations,  nor 
w"  darter*  were  ^ey  indulged  in  any  case  to  an  extent 
Julia.  which  can  fairly  be  branded  as  weak  or  culpa- 

ble. He  might  surely  be  excused  for  blindness  to  the  fail- 
ings of  an  only  daughter,  till  they  were  forced  on  his  obser- 
vation by  their  notoriety,  and  the  risk  of  fatal  consequences  ; 
for  the  fair  Julia,  though  he  had  sported  with  her  feelings  for 
the  furtherance  of  his  settled  policy,  when  he  required  her 
to  marry  Agrippa  and  Tiberius  successively,  he  still  felt  a 
father's  admiration.  When  he  declared  that  if  pure  and  high- 
born damsels  could  not  be  found  to  immure  themselves  in  the 
cloisters  of  Vesta,  he  would  devote  his  own  daughter  to  tend 
the  sacred  fire,  he  was  prepared  to  sacrifice  all  the  pride  of 
the  sire  to  the  still  greater  pride  of  the  sovereign.  He  had 
carefully  trained  her  for  the  throne  or  the  temple  in  the  aus- 
tere habits  which  he  pretended  himself  to  cultivate  ;  but  from 

1  Horace,  Od.  iii.  29. : 

"  Ne  semper  udum  Tibur  et  JSsulae 

Declive  contempleris  arvurn  .... 
Omitte  mirari  beatae 

Fumum  et  opes  strepitumque  Romas." 

*  It  is  a  common  opinion  that  the  public  baths  of  Titus  were  within  the 
Horti  Msecenatis,  and  were  perhaps  an  enlargement  of  the  swimming  bath  of 
warm  water  which  Maecenas  was  the  first  to  construct  at  Rome.  Dion,  Iv.  1. 
The  Thermae  Titi  lay  on  the  brow  of  the  Esquiline,  overlooking  the  Forum  ; 
and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  gardens  of  Maecenas  may  have  reached  to  this 
spot.  But  the  commanding  elevation  on  which  the  palace  stood  must  have 
been  some  way  further  back,  not  far  perhaps  from  the  site  of  the  church  of 
St.  Maria  Maggiore,  which  is  the  highest  spot  in  Rome,  177  feet  above  the  sea- 
leTel.  The  Campus  Esquilinus  is  now  the  gardens  of  the  Villa  Negroni 


B.  C.  7.1  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  201 

the  time  she  had  become  her  own  mistress  (and  the  frequent 
absence  and  constant  occupation  of  Agrippa  had  given  her  in 
opening  womanhood  the  control  of  her  own  leisure  and 
amusements),  Julia  had  relapsed  into  a  scandalous  levity 
which  had  caused  him  deep  mortification.  Nevertheless,  the 
harmony  of  her  union,  and  the  likeness  her  children  seemed 
to  bear  to  the  husband  who  acknowledged  them,  satisfied  him 
that  her  follies  had  never  degenerated  into  crime  ;  and  when- 
ever he  checked  by  word  or  sign  the  wantonness  of  her  be- 
haviour, she  seldom  failed  to  disarm  his  anger  by  the  arch- 
ness of  her  excuses.  Thus,  on  her  appearing  one  day  before 
him  brilliantly  attired,  Augustus  made  no  remark,  though  his 
countenance  indicated  his  vexation.  The  next  day  she  came 
into  his  presence  in  the  decorous  habiliments  of  a  sober 
matron,  upon  which  he  could  not  refrain  from  exclaiming 
with  delight,  that  now  she  was  arrayed  as  beseemed  Caesar's 
daughter.  To-day,  she  replied,  I  am  dressed  to  please  my 
fattier  ;  yesterday  I  thought  to  please  my  husband.  Again, 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  theatre  were  turned  on  one  occasion 
upon  Livia  and  herself,  on  their  appearing  in  public,  the  one 
attended  by  a  number  of  grave  seniors,  the  other  surrounded 
by  a  troop  of  gay  and  dissolute  youths.  Augustus  remarked 
to  her  the  painful  contrast  between  the  demeanour  of  the 
empress  and  the  princess.  JBut  these  young  men,  she  replied, 
will  grow  old  along  with  me.1 

Excuses  such  as  these,  and  still  more  the  grace  with  which 
they  were  delivered,  softened  the  father's  heart,  and  while  at 
one  time  he  playfully  complained  that  he  had 

11  TT  -11       TH       Heraccom- 

two  troublesome  daughters,  Julia  and  the  Ke-  piishments, at- 
public,  at  others  he  would  gravely  declare  that  dangerous 
she  was  a  second  Claudia,  the  most  illustrious   e 
model  of  Roman  chastity.8    Yet  he  must  have  sighed  at  the 
difference  of  her  demeanour  from  the  idea  he  had  formed  to 
himself  of  a  Caesarean  princess.    The  conduct,  he  had  said, 
of  every  member  of  his  illustrious  family  should  be  such  as 

1  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  5.  :  "  Et  hi  mecum  senes  fient." 
1  Liv.  xxix.  14. ;  Suet.  Tib.  2. 


202  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.  747. 

might  be  daily  blazoned  in  the  Acts  and  Journals  of  the 
state.1  To  such  an  extent  did  he  carry  this  prudery  with 
respect  to  his  daughter,  that  even  after  her  marriage,  as  it 
would  seem,  he  rebuked  her  for  receiving  a  visit  of  compli- 
ment at  Baise  from  a  young  nobleman  named  Viniciu's.11  To 
such  restrictions  the  temper  of  Julia  was  peculiarly  averse. 
The  beauty  of  her  countenance  is  still  attested  by  coins  and 
gems,  and  the  traits  of  wit  already  mentioned  evince,  among 
others,  that  she  was  not  less  distinguished  for  cleverness. 
The  care  with  which  she  had  been  educated  had  extended 
beyond  the  mere  household  employments  to  which  her  father 
pretended  to  destine  her.  She  was  a  woman  of  letters  and 
even  erudition,  and  we  may  believe  that,  like  the  Sempronia, 
to  whom  Sallust  pays  an  equivocal  compliment,  she  danced, 
played,  and  sang  with  a  grace  and  spirit  which  had  but  lately 
been  confined  to  the  least  honourable  of  Roman  women.8 
We  cannot  be  surprised  that  she  was  proud  of  her  position, 
as  well  as  of  her  personal  attractions,  and  courted  the  danger- 
ous admiration  she  excited.  Nor  can  we  fail  to  sympathize 
with  the  magnanimity  of  her  answer  to  one  who  objected  that 
her  manners  were  far  removed  from  the  affected  simplicity 
of  her  father's :  He  forgets  that  he  is  Caesar  ;  I  cannot  but 
remember  that  lam  Caesar's  daughter*  But  the  memory  of 
Augustus  went  farther  back  than  Julia's.  He  had  heard,  hi 
his  younger  days,  how  talents  and  fascinations,  such  as  hers, 
had  aided  in  the  development  of  political  intrigues ;  that 
such  had  been  the  painted  baits  with  which  a  Clodius  or  a 

1  Suet.  Oct.  64.     A  hundred  years  before  it  had  been  recorded  of  M.  Livius 
Drusus  that  he  had  wished  for  a  house  of  glass,  that  every  citizen  might  wit- 
ness every  action  of  his  life.     The  different  way  in  which  Augustus  expressed 
the  same  idea  marks  the  change  from  the  time  when  statesmen  lived  in  public, 
to  that  when  their  proceedings  were  only  discussed  in  private  coteries. 

2  Suet.  I.  c.     Velleius  mentions  Vinicii  of  three  generations,  and  we  can- 
not determine  the  precise  period  of  this  occurrence.      But  as  Julia  was  first 
married  to  Marcellus  at  a  very  early  age,  it  is  not  likely  to  have  taken  place 
while  she  was  yet  single  ;  and  if  she  had  been  a  widow  at  the  time,  it  would 
probably  have  been  mentioned  as  giving  some  colour  to  the  emperor's  jealousy. 

1  Sallust.  Catil  25.  4  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  6. 


B.C.  7.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  203 

Catiline  had  caught  the  gayest  of  the  young  patricians,  and 
precipitated  giddy  spendthrifts  into  grave  conspiracies.  Such 
times  might  once  more  arrive  ;  and  the  rumoured  amours  of 
Julia  undoubtedly  caused  him  double  disquietude,  both  as  a 
father  and  a  ruler.  On  Agrippa's  decease  the  emperor  was 
for  a  tune  undetermined  how  to  dispose  of  the  widow,  now 
in  the  full  meridian  of  her  passionate  enjoyment  of  life.  His 
regard  for  her  good  name,  and  for  the  dignity  of  his  house, 
forbade  him  to  leave  the  thoughtless  matron  without  the 
protection  of  a  legitimate  guardian ;  but  to  unite  her  with 
some  noble  consular  would  have  sown  discord  in  his  own 
family,  and  excited  importunate  pretensions  in  the  breast  of 
a  stranger.  Such  untoward  results  might  be  averted  by 
giving  her  to  a  husband  of  inferior  rank  ;  and  he  long  scanned 
the  list  of  the  Roman  knights  to  find  her  a  respectable  and 
trusty  bridegroom.  The  intrigues  of  Livia  diverted  him,  as 
we  have  seen,  from  this  design ;  but  the  choice  to  which  he 
was  finally  directed  failed  to  accomplish  any  of  the  objects 
he  had  proposed.  Tiberius,  compelled  to  separate  from  a 
wife  to  whom  he  was  attached,  and  who  had  borne  him  an 
only  son,  and  distrusting  the  lightness  of  the  woman  he  had 
consented  to  take  in  her  stead,  was  met  on  her  part  by  dislike 
and  disdain.  The  daughter  of  the  emperor  despised  the  son 
of  the  empress.1  She  was  proud  of  the  numerous  and  flour- 
ishing family  she  had  borne  in  her  earlier  wedlock ;  she  con- 
sidered her  own  position  secured  by  their  presumptive  expec- 
tations, and  regarded  him  as  an  unworthy  intruder  within  the 
sphere  of  their  splendid  prospects.  To  Tiberius  the  fruitful 
Julia  bore  only  a  single  child,  who  died  in  infancy :  from 
thenceforth  the  ill-assorted  couple  never  consented  to  cohabit 

1  Niebuhr  is  reported  to  have  remarked,  in  his  Lectures  on  Roman  History 
(Hist.  Rom.  v.  175.),  that  Tiberius  despised  the  daughter  of  Augustus.  But 
this  is  evidently  an  oversight.  Tacitus  had  said  just  the  reverse :  "  Julia 
fuerat  in  matrimonio  Tiberii  .  .  .  spreveratque  ut  imparem."  A  Julia,  though 
by  adoption  only,  was  at  least  an  equal  match  for  a  Claudius ;  besides,  the 
first  and  beloved  wife  of  Tiberius  had  been  an  obscure  Vipsania.  Comp. 
Tac.  Ann.  ii.  43. :  "  Eques  Romanus  Pomponius  Atticua  "  (the  grandfather  of 
Vipsania)  "  dedecere  Claudiorum  imagines  videbatur." 


204  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.  747. 

again.1  During  the  years  which  followed  the  husband  was 
but  little  in  Rome  ;  nor  do  we  hear  of  the  wife  accompany- 
ing him  into  the  provinces.  The  imperial  palace  continued 
to  be  her  residence ;  but  she  evaded  the  superintendence  of 
an  indulgent  parent,  and  soon  plunged,  without  restraint, 
into  levities  and  vices  which  became  the  theme  of  every  idle 
tongue. 

Many  indeed  were  at  that  time  the  idle  tongues  and  the 
idle  hands  of  the  teeming  capital.  The  overwhelming  energy, 
The  character  which,  but  a  few  years  before,  had  animated  the 
few tofemaie  forum,  the  comitia,  and  the  tribunals,  was  sud- 
virtae-  denly  arrested  in  its  full  career.  But  it  required 

more  than  half  a  century  of  servitude  completely  to  paralyse 
its  impulses.  Forbidden  to  rush  in  full  volume  along  the 
broad  channel  of  public  life,  it  oozed  away  in  a  thousand 
petty  interests  and  trifling  occupations.  With  the  age  of 
Augustus  commenced  an  era  of  personal  affectation.8  A 
graceful  address,  a  splendid  equipage,  a  distinguished  air 
stamped  the  candidate  for  popular  admiration.  A  success  in 
the  counterfeit  contests  of  the  declaimers'  schools,  or  before 
the  partial  tribunal  of  a  social  audience,  contented  the  most 
ardent  aspirants  for  fame  or  notoriety.  The  tone  of  this 
class  was  indeed  far  more  humane  and  polished  than  it  had 
been  fifty  years  earlier :  the  young  nobility  of  Rome  were  no 
longer  led  by  ruffians  and  bravos  ;  skill  in  the  use  of  deadly 
weapons  was  no  longer  their  point  of  honour ;  while  the 
exercises  of  the  Campus  Martius  served  only  to  exhibit  a  fine 
figure  or  complexion,  and  the  last  shadows  of  faction  were  cast 
upon  the  contests  of  the  Circus.  Both  men  and  women  crowd- 
ed the  theatres  to  be  seen  rather  than  to  see.  Love-making 
succeeded  to  arms ;  verse-making  to  eloquence ;  vanity  to 
ambition ;  pride  of  notoriety  to  thirst  for  glory.  The  exqui- 
sites of  the  day  were  men  who  dangled  in  the  train  of  ladies, 
the  oracles  of  coteries,  the  observed  of  aristocratic  reunions  ; 

1  Suet.  Tib.  7.  a  Ovid,  Ars  Amand.  in.  107. : 

"  Corpora  si  veteres  non  sic  coluere  puellae, 
Nee  veteres  cultos  sic  habuere  viros." 


B.C.7.1  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  205 

the  flattery  of  the  drawing-room  was  reduced  to  a  system, 
and  courtship  between  the  sexes  taught  as  an  art.1  Success 
in  affairs  of  gallantry  became  a  title  to  distinction,  and  a 
score  of  brave  young  nobles  laid  siege  to  the  heart  of  a 
princess,  who  would  formerly  have  emulated  one  another  in 
storming  a  royal  fortress.  Such  were  the  snares  which 
surrounded  the  steps  of  the  unfortunate  Julia.  Reckless 
,and  daring  by  nature,  exulting  in  the  grandeur  of  her  sta- 
tion, overflowing  with  animal  spirits,  she  seemed  to  lead  the 
current  of  fashion  which  was  hurrying  her  to  irretrievable 
destruction. 

Into  this  fatal  vortex  the  grandsons  of  the  emperor  were 
now  about  also  to  enter.  Augustus,  in  order  to  adopt  them 
as  his  own  children,  had  bought  them,  according  Education  and 
to  ancient  form,  of  their  father,  with  a  piece  of  (^^a^dLu- 
money  weighed  in  a  balance.  He  had  taken  a  cius  Ca38ar- 
deep  interest  in  them  from  their  earliest  infancy,  and  had 
carried  them  with  him  on  his  progresses,  and  placed  them 
at  the  foot  of  his  couch  at  meals."  Their  education  had  been 
conducted  under  his  own  direction.  He  once  found  Caius, 
it  is  said,  reading  a  work  of  Cicero's,  and,  when  the  boy 
would  have  concealed  it,  encouraged  him  to  continue  the 
perusal,  saying  with  a  pensive  smile,  He  was  a  great  man 
and  loved  his  country.*  The  anecdote  is  cited  in  proof  of 
the  emperor's  magnanimity  ;  but  it  may  also  show  that  even 
his  darling  pupils  could  make  only  a  surreptitious  acquaint- 
ance with  the  noblest  models  of  their  language.  An  educa- 
tion thus  restricted  was  at  best  but  a  counterfeit ;  we  cannot 
expect  that  it  would  have  trained  the  presumptive  rulers  of 

1  The  Ars  Amandi  of  the  poet  Ovid,  the  liveliest  mirror  of  the  fashions 
of  the  time,  came  forth  about  the  year  752,  as  will  appear  from  a  historical 
allusion  which  will  be  referred  to  in  its  place.  The  Amores  was  published 
earlier. 

8  Suet.  Oct.  64.,  who  adds  a  curious  trait  of  affection :  "  Nihil  aeque  ela- 
boravit  quam  ut  imitarentur  chirographum  suum." 

3  Plut.  Cic.  49.  A  similar  trait  of  moderation  is  recorded  in  his  saying 
with  regard  to  Cato :  "  Quisquis  prsesentem  statum  civitatis  commutari  non 
volet,  et  civis  et  vir  bonus  est."  Macrob.  Sat.  ii.  4. 


206  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.748. 

the  empire  to  virtues  suitable  to  their  station.  Brief  as  their 
career  was  destined  to  be,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  they 
profited  but  little  by  the  lessons  of  moderation  their  grand- 
father inculcated  upon  them.  Lucius,  the  younger,  intoxi- 
cated by  the  acclamations  which  had  greeted  him  on  his 
casual  appearance  in  the  theatre,  had  urged  Augustus  to 
make  his  elder  brother  consul  before  he  had  yet  been  num- 
bered among  the  men.1  Such  bad  been  the  fortune  of  the 
young  Octavius,  in  the  midst  of  a  revolutionary  crisis,  and 
the  spoiled  children  of  the  empire  would  have  adopted  this 
exceptional  precedent  as  an  ordinary  principle  of  government. 
May  the  gods  grant,  Augustus  had  replied,  that  no  such  emer- 
gency shall  again  occur  as  that  which  made  me  consul  before 
the  age  of  twenty  /  A  magistracy,  he  added,  should  be  given 
to  none  but  such  as  have  learned  to  control  both  their  own 
passions  and  those  of  the  people ;  and  to  this  rule,  at  least, 
he  might  have  said,  I  myself  was  no  exception. 

Nevertheless,  favours  and  distinctions  were  rapidly  show- 
ered upon  the  scions  of  the  imperial  house  ;  and  it  was,  doubt- 
less, alreadv  intimated  to  them  that  the  period 

The  tribumtian  /  ,,.,  ,  1111 

power  for  five  oi  eligibility  to  the  highest  honours  should  be 
ferred  upon  speedily  abridged.  Having  conferred  upon  Cains 
jJt^tt.  the  priesthood,  and  admitted  him  to  the  benches 
of  the  senate  at  spectacles  and  banquets,  Au- 
gustus compensated  Tiberius  with  the  more  substantial  prero- 
gatives of  the  tribunitian  power,  which  was  now  bestowed 
upon  him  for  a  term  of  five  years.*  This  elevation,  which 
might  be  regarded  technically  as  almost  equivalent  to  asso- 
ciation in  the  empire,  would  have  made  him,  if  present  in 
the  city,  too  decidedly  superior  to  the  younger  princes.  To 
modify  its  effect  he  was  removed  from  the  centre  of  affaire, 
under  the  pretext  of  a  mission  to  Armenia,  which,  on  the 
death  of  Tigranes,  had  been  invaded  by  the  Parthians.  This 
nice  attempt  at  equipoise  seems,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
to  have  entirely  failed.  The  grandsons  ventured  to  show 
themselves  aggrieved  by  the  predominance  thus  given  to  their 

1  Dion,  lv.  9.  *  Dion,  Iv.  9 ;  Suet.  Tib.  10. 


B.  C.  6.J  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  207 

kinsman,  pre-eminent  though  he  was  for  his  services  and  ex- 
perience ;  and  the  son-in-law  was  not  less  hurt  at  the  prospect 
of  a  distant  expedition,  which  he  justly  regarded  as  a  spe- 
cious banishment.    It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  Tiberius 
cowered  under  the  rising  favour  of  these  aspiring  youths,  or 
that  he  voluntarily  resigned  the  place  nearest  the  throne  to 
avoid  collision  with  them;   though  the  one  is  the  reason 
assigned  by  the  historians,  the  other  that  pretended  by  him- 
self, for  his  relinquishing  the  hardships  and  glories  of  his 
foreign  mission,  and  taking  up  his  residence  in  the  obscure 
retreat  of  Rhodes.     Still  less  is  it  credible  that  this  aban- 
donment of  active  service,  with  all  its  hopes  and  visions  of 
the  future,  was  caused  by  disgust  at  the  infidelities  of  Julia, 
to  which  a  prevalent  rumour  ascribed  it.1    The  cloud  was 
upon  him ;  the  dark  humour  of  his  race  was  at  nis  dissatisfac- 
the  moment  in  the  ascendant,  and  prompted  him  mentafrompui>- 
to  shake  off  with  a  peevish  effort  the  restraints  Ucaffairs- 
of  his  position,  and  the  dire  necessity  of  eternal  dissimulation, 
which  he  loathed  while  he  crouched  beneath  it.    At  the  ma- 
ture age  of  forty  years,  he  solicited  a  release  from  active  ser- 
vice, and  pretended  a  wish  to  cultivate  philosophy  in  retire- 
ment.   Augustus  was  surprised  and  vexed.     He  could  not 
but   suspect  that  his   son-in-law  was  irritated  against  the 
children  of  Agrippa,  and  he  demanded,  perhaps,  some  proof 
of  the  affection  which  ought  to  subsist  between  such  near 
relatives.    Tiberius  opened  his  will,  and  showed,  by  the  pro- 
visions he  had  made  for  their  advantage,  that  he  entertained 
no  personal  jealousy.2    When  he  pressed  for  leave  to  depart, 
the  emperor  pretended  the  utmost  distress,  and  joined  his 
own  prayers  with  Livia's  that  he  would  remain  at  Rome. 
Tiberius,  not  to  be  outdone  in  these  transparent  professions, 

1  Tac.  Ann.  i.  51. :  "  Nee  alia  tarn  intima  Tiberio  causa  cur  Rhodum  absce- 
deret." 

2  Dion,  Iv.  9.     Comp.  Suet.  Tib.  10.     Velleius,  the  flatterer  of  Tiberius, 
says,  "  Veritus  ne  fulgor  suus  orientium  juvenum  obstaret  initiis,  dissimulata 
causa  consilii  sui,  commeatum  ab  socero  atque  eodem  vitrico  acquiescendi  a 
continuatione  laborura  pctiit." 


208  HISTOBT  OF  THE  ROMANS 

threatened  to  starve  himself  unless  his  wishes  were  indulged. 
Having  at  last  obtained  his  point,  he  went  down  to  Ostia, 
leaving  his  wife  and  son  behind  him,  and  parted  from  his 
attendants  in  sullen  silence.1  As  he  sailed  along  the  Campa- 
nian  coast,  he  was  overtaken  by  a  report  of  the  emperor's 
sickness,  which  induced  him  to  halt.  But  when  he  found  that 
this  caused  observation,  he  determined  to  proceed  without 
further  delay,  and  braved  a  tempest  in  prosecuting  his  voy- 
age. This  secession  from  affairs  took  place  in  the  year  748. 
At  Rhodes,  the  retired  statesman  seemed  to  abandon  all  con- 
cern for  politics.  He  contented  himself  with  a  small  house 
in  the  city,  and  a  villa,  not  much  more  spacious,  in  the  sub- 
urbs. He  frequented,  without  attendants,  the  schools  and 
lecture  halls,  the  resort  of  philosophers  and  students,  and 
amused  himself  with  entering  into  their  discussions  as  an 
ordinary  visitor.  The  Rhodians,  indeed,  failed  to  compre- 
hend such  condescension,  and  incommoded  the  august  stranger 
with  importunate  compliments.  A  professor,  however,  who 
ventured  to  respect  his  incognito  so  far  as  to  reprehend  his 
arguments,  was  soon  convinced  of  his  mistake  by  the  blows 
of  the  lictors,  whom  Tiberius  summoned  to  the  spot.* 

The  sons  of  Agrippa  reaped  all  the  advantages  of  this  ill- 
humour.  Livia  might  witness  with  dismay  the  honours  to 
Cming  Cwar  which  her  son's  rivals  were  now  advanced,  though 
.  she  dared  not  manifest  her  vexation.  After  an 
.  749  interval  of  seventeen  years,  Augustus  allowed 
E- c-  *•  himself  to  be  invested  once  again  with  the  consu- 
lar fasces,  and  opened  the  year  749  with  due  solemnities.  He 
was  about  to  introduce  Caius  to  the  people,  on  the  occasion 
of  his  commencing  his  sixteenth  year  and  reaching  the  age 
to  assume  the  toga.  The  senators  decreed  that  the  young 
man  should  be  eligible  for  the  consulship  within  five  years 
from  that  time ;  and  anxious  though  he  was  to  advance  his 

1  This  eon  must  hare  been  Drusus,  bis  child  by  Yipsania.  Julia's  infant, 
from  the  account  of  Suetonius,  must  hare  been  already  dead. 

*  Suet  Tib.  11.  At  this  place  we  lose  for  a  few  years  the  guidance  of 
Dion,  and  are  left  to  the  anecdotes  of  Suetonius. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  209 

favourite,  Augustus  himself,  perhaps,  interposed  to  withhold 
them  from  designating  him  for  it  at  once.1  When  the  em- 
peror appeared  once  more  in  752,  surrounded,  now  for  the 
thirteenth  time,  with  the  ensigns  of  the  chief  office  of  the 
free  state,  the  enthusiasm  of  all  ranks  burst  forth  with  extra- 
ordinary acclamations.  They  had  already  endowed  him  with 
every  power,  every  distinction,  every  dignity  they  had  offi- 
cially to  give ;  but  the  man  who,  after  so  long  a  tenure  of 
power,  still  preserved  to  them  the  forms  of  liberty  deserved 
the  highest  title  of  reverent  affection  which  hu-  August™  re- 
man nature  can  bestow.  The  appellation  of  penltione0fp~ 
Father  of  his  Country  was  the  dearest  to  the  2'^f^' 
feelings  of  every  genuine  Roman  ;  it  had  been  B- c- 2- 
heard  indeed  sometimes  to  resound  from  the  lips  of  the  multi- 
tude among  the  praises  of  Augustus ;  but  now  for  the  first 
time  it  was  solemnly  pronounced  by  the  voice  perhaps  of  the 
tribunes,  and  formally  recorded.  It  was  engraved  over  the 
gateway  of  the  imperial  residence,  in  the  interior  of  the 
senate-house,  at  the  foot  of  the  emperor's  statue,  and  in  the 
precincts  of  his  forum.8  A  public  festival  was  decreed  upon 
the  occasion.  Soon  afterwards  Augustus  led  his  younger 
grandson  into  the  forum,  and  presented  him  in  the  gown  of 
manhood  to  the  assembled  citizens.  The  two  Caesars  received 
the  title  of  Princes  of  the  JRoman  Youth,  and  rode  at  the 
head  of  a  cavalcade  of  noble  companions,  each  with  a  silver 
spear  and  shield.3  The  emperor  gave  an  extraordinary  largess 
of  money  to  all  the  citizens  who  were  registered  at  the  time 
as  recipients  of  the  public  corn ;  a  number  which  he  had  now 
succeeded  in  reducing  to  about  two  hundred  thousand.4  In 
the  course  of  the  year  followed  the  dedication  of  the  temple, 

1  Tac.  Ann.  i.  3. :  "  Nondum  posita  puerili  praetexta  principes  Juventutia 
appellari,  destinari  Consules,  specie  recusandi  flagrantissime  concupiverat." 

*  Mon.  Ancyr.  col.  7.  gr.  vers.  Comp.  Kalend.  Praenest.  in  Fast.  Verrian. 
p.  106.  (Orelli,  Inscr.  ii.  384.) :  "  Non.  Feb.  N.  concordiae  in  arce  ferise  ex  S. 
C.  quod  eo  die  Imp.  Cassar  Pont.  Max.  trib.  potest.  xxi.  Cons.  xiii.  a  S.  P.  q. 
R.  pater  patriae  appellatus."  Fischer,  R.  Z.  422.  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  129.  See 
above,  chapter  xxxiii. 

8  Mon.  Ancyr.  col.  3.  *  Mon.  Ancyr.  I.  c. 

VOL.  iv. — 14 


210  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.  752. 

just  then  completed,  of  Mars  the  Avenger,  as  a  threat  and 
defiance  to  the  Parthians ;  and  the  martial  ardour  of  the 
populace  was  stimulated  by  gladiatorial  shows  of  more  than 
usual  magnificence,  with  the  spectacle  of  a  naval  combat  in 
the  vast  basin  which  Augustus  had  excavated  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Tiber.1 

The  pride,  however,  with  which  Augustus  regarded  his 
illustrious  grandsons  at  their  entrance  into  manhood,  was 

dashed  by  the  conviction  he  could  no  longer  sup- 
banuhment'of  press  of  the  utter  depravity  of  his  daughter. 

The  orgies  of  the  unfortunate  Julia  could  no  lon- 
ger be  disguised.  Among  the  partners  of  her  licentious  plea- 
sures were  some  of  the  noblest  youths  of  Rome,  men  whose 
acts  and  manners  could  not  fail  to  be  the  talk  of  the  whole 
city.  The  excesses  in  which  she  indulged  were  not  less  open 
than  profligate.  She  traversed  the  streets  and  public  places  of 
the  city  by  night,  attended  by  the  young  bacchanals  her  com- 
panions, and  polluted  the  dignified  solitude  of  the  rostra  itself 
with  her  unseasonable  revels.2  In  vain  had  the  founder  of 
the  empire  devoted  himself  to  the  reformation  of  public  man- 
ners ;  in  vain  had  he  pretended  to  emulate  in  his  own  person 
the  severe  virtues  of  the  ancient  heroes ;  the  laws  by  which 
he  affected  to  recall  the  pristine  fame  and  fortune  of  the 
state  were  trodden  under  foot  by  his  own  daughter,  his  only 
child,  the  mother  of  his  anticipated  successors.  Terrible  must 
have  been  the  shock  to  one  who  hoped  to  found  an  hereditary 
dynasty,  when  he  was  made  to  doubt  the  legitimacy  of  its 
first  inheritors.  In  the  passionate  vexation  which  now  over- 
whelmed every  other  feeling,  he  suffered  himself  to  make  a 
public  avowal  to  the  senate,  by  the  mouth  of  his  quaestor,  of 

1  Mon.  Ancyr.  1.  c. ;  Suet.  Oct.  43.  Dion  (Iv.  10.)  says  that  water  was 
introduced  into  the  Circus  Flaminius,  and  thirty-six  crocodiles  slain  there. 

s  Dion,  Iv.  10. :  a.<rt\ya.ivov<ra.v  oSrus  Sore  KOI  iv  TT)  ayopa  Kal  fir'  avrov 
ye  rou  jS^uaroy  (col  Ktaud^fiv  vvKTtap  ical  avfiirivtiv.  Seneca  (de  Benef.  vi.  32.) 
goes  still  further :  "  Admissos  gregatim  adulteros,  pererratam  nocturnis  comis- 
sationibus  civitatem,  forum  ipsum  et  rostra  ex  quibus  pater  legem  de  adulteriis 
tulerat,  in  stupra  placuisse." 


B.C.  2.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  211 

every  crime  imputed  to  the  culprit.  We  cannot  tell  how  far 
he  had  chosen  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  these  charges, 
which  some  very  near  to  him  would  not  scruple  to  exagge- 
rate ;  but  it  would  seem  that  he  adopted  even  the  worst 
without  qualification.1  Nor  did  his  spleen  evaporate  in 
words.  He  seized  not  Julia  only,  but  the  reputed  partners 
of  her  crimes  also,  of  whom  there  were  many  both  of  eques- 
trian and  senatorial  rank,  and  banished  them  from  Italy. 
Among  them  were  numbered  an  Appius  Claudius,  a  Sempro- 
nius  Gracchus,  a  Quinctius,  and  a  Scipio ;  men  of  rank  so 
exalted  that  they  might  have  been  tempted  to  intrigue  with 
her  against  the  prince  and  the  government.  The  emperor 
boasted  that  he  was  satisfied  with  punishing  the  gallants  of 
the  princess  with  no  greater  severity  than  if  she  had  been 
merely  a  private  matron.  But  the  most  distinguished  of  her 
paramours  was  Julius  Antonius,  the  second  of  the  sons  borne 
by  Fulvia  to  the  triumvir,  whom  Augustus  had  spared  for 
the  sake  of  his  sister,  and  eventually  had  elevated  to  the  con- 
sulship. The  ungrateful  nobleman  had  corrupted  the  daugh- 
ter of  his  benefactor,  and  induced  her  to  conspire  against  his 
life ;  and  the  law  of  majestas  or  treason  was  invoked  in  this 
special  case  to  aggravate  the  penalties  of  the  law  of  adultery. 
Antonius  suffered  death.  Julia  herself,  now  in  her  thirty- 
eighth  year,  was  exiled  to  the  barren  island  of  Pandateria, 
where  she  was  treated  with  great  harshness,  and  left  in  want 
of  ordinary  comforts."  The  political  colour  of  her  offence 
was  marked  by  the  rigorous  precautions  taken  with  regard 
to  the  few  visitors  who  were  suffered  to  approach  her.  Her 
mother,  Scribonia,  was  allowed,  and  perhaps  required,  to 
bear  her  company.  Tiberius,  on  hearing  of  an  event  at  which 

1  Seneca,  in  the  passage  above  referred  to,  seems  to  have  the  official  docu- 
ment in  his  eye.  Julia  was  branded  as  the  vilest  mercenary :  "ex  adultera 
in  quajstuariam  versa,"  &c.  Nevertheless  she  has  found  defenders.  Ruhkopf 
(in  loc.  Senec.)  refers  to  Wieland,  Werk.  xxiv.  338.  Blackened  she  may  have 
been ;  but  in  those  evil  times  at  what  point  of  degradation  was  the  man  or 
woman  who  had  once  abandoned  virtue  likely  to  stop  ? 

*  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  6.  Veil.  ii.  100. :  "  Se  et  Gallo  Caninio  Consulibus, 
dedicate  Martis  Templo."  Between  Jul.  1.  and  Oct.  1.  Fischer. 


212  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.  752. 

he  doubtless  felt  little  concern,  thought  it  decent  to  intercede 
for  her  in  a  letter ;  but  his  instances  were  sternly  rejected. 
He  had,  indeed,  double  cause  of  dissatisfaction,  for,  not  con- 
tent with  infidelity  to  his  bed,  she  had  sought  to  injure  him 
with  her  father  by  attacking  his  character  with  libels,  in 
which  she  was  supposed  to  have  been  assisted  by  Sempro- 
nius.1 

The  violence  with  which  Augustus  acted  in  this  matter  is 
not  inconsistent  with  his  character ;  for  not  only  was  he  sub- 
ject to  accesses  of  sudden  passion,  but,  when  his 

Deep  indigna-       «,.  /,  ,.,.  .         •,-,-, 

tionof  Angus-  feelings  of  anger  and  indignation  had  been  long 
pent  up  and  disguised,  they  were  wont  some- 
times to  burst  out  with  accumulated  and  terrible  force.2 
"When  a  confidante  of  Julia  named  Phrebe  hanged  herself  for 
fear  of  punishment,  he  was  heard  to  exclaim  in  bitterness  of 
spirit,  Would  that  I  were  Phoebus  father  !  He  was  not  slow, 
however,  in  recollecting  himself,  and  perceiving  that  he  had 
overstepped  the  limits  of  discretion.  More  than  ever  did  he 
now  lament  the  death  of  Agrippa  and  Maecenas,  whose  counsels 
might  have  restrained  him  in  the  full  career  of  his  fury.  He 
may  have  discovered,  when  too  late,  that,  as  regarded  at  least 
the  treasonable  practices  ascribed  to  the  lovers  of  Julia,  he  had 
been  imposed  upon  by  their  enemies,  and  perhaps  by  Livia 
herself ;  for  the  name  of  Julius  Antonius  seems  not  to  have 
been  erased  from  the  Fasti,  the  last  disgrace  which  was  ordi- 
narily inflicted  upon  noble  criminals.*  Nevertheless  his  indig- 
nation against  his  daughter  continued  immovable.  It  was 
not  till  the  expiration  of  five  years  that  he  allowed  any  miti- 
gation of  her  sufferings,  nor  to  the  last  could  he  be  further 

1  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  63.  For  the  circumstances  of  this  public  scandal,  see  Sen- 
eca and  Dion,  II.  cc. ;  Suet.  Oct.  64.  101. ;  Tib.  1.  11. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vii. 
46. ;  Veil.  ii.  100.  This  last  writer  fixes  the  date  of  Julia's  banishment  to  the 
summer  of  752.  Fischer,  Roem.  Zeitt.  p.  423. 

8  Aurelius  Victor  (Epit.  i.)  says  that  he  was  merely  "paululum  impatiens, 
leviter  iracundus ;  "  but  Suetonius  tells  a  fearful  story  of  his  violence  in  the 
case  of  Q.  Gallius.  (Oct.  27.)  Horace  intimates  that  he  was  not  to  be  trifled 
with  even  by  his  courtiers  :  "  Cui  male  si  palpere  recalcitrat." 

3  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  18.     See  Walckenaer's  Hist.  cTHorace,  ii.  396. 


B.C.  2.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  213 

prevailed  on  than  to  transfer  her  from  her  desolate  island  to 
the  extreme  point  of  the  Italian  continent.  "When  the  sena- 
tors persisted  in  interceding  for  her,  he  truculently  replied 
by  wishing  them  such  wives  and  such  daughters  for  their 
own.1 

Meanwhile  the  world,  according  to  the  expression  of  the 
courtly  Velleius,  was  feeling  the  effect  of  Tiberius's  retire- 
ment. The  Parthians,  as  he  proceeds  to  explain, 

f  -n  I—,-!        -i  Mission  of 

renouncing  the  alliance  of  Home,  laid  hands  upon  Cains  Caesar  to 
Armenia.  Tigranes,  whom  the  Romans  had  A.  u.Vss. 
placed  upon  the  throne,  had  died  in  the  year  B' c' 
748 :  the  Armenians  had  taken  advantage  of  this  event  to 
deliver  themselves  from  dependence  on  their  western  protect- 
ors, and  the  sons  of  the  deceased  monarch  had  ventured  to 
enter  on  their  succession  without  seeking  their  crown  from 
the  emperor.  Augustus,  resenting  this  act  of  freedom,  had 
equipped  an  expedition  against  them,  from  the  command  of 
which  Tiberius,  as  we  have  seen,  had  withdrawn  himself. 
But  the  Roman  legions  had  proceeded,  under  another  leader, 
to  menace  Armenia  with  invasion :  the  sons  of  Tigranes  had 
been  compelled  to  retire,  and  a  prince  named  Artavasdes  had 
been  set  up  in  their  room.*  A  counter-revolution  speedily 
followed.  Artavasdes  was  expelled  by  his  indignant  sub- 
jects ;  the  Parthians  were  called  in  to  their  assistance ;  the 
Romans  suffered  a  defeat ;  and  a  second  Tigranes  succeeded, 
by  the  help  of  foreign  arms,  to  the  throne  of  his  father.3 
This  hostile  movement  on  the  part  of  the  Parthians,  who  had 
so  lately  cowered  under  the  anger  of  Augustus,  bespoke  re- 
vived confidence  and  power.  At  the  same  time  the  Arab 
chiefs  of  the  Syrian  frontier  were  provoking  the  chastisement 
of  the  empire.  It  was  determined  to  send  Caius  Caesar,  with 
a  numerous  force  and  extensive  powers,  for  the  settlement  of 

1  Suet.  Oct.  65. 

*  Coins  of  the  year  749  bear  the  legend  "  Armenia  recepta,"  in  reference 
to  this  event.  Hoeck,  i.  2.  48. 

3  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  3,  4. :  "  Jussu  Augusti  impositus  Artavasdes,  et  non  sine 
clade  nostra  dejectus." 


214  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.U.753. 

the  affairs  of  the  East.1  In  753  the  young  prince  had  reached 
the  age  of  twenty,  and  was  designated  for  the  consulship  of 
the  ensuing  year.  Placed  under  a  veteran  adviser,  M.  Lol- 
lius,  the  same,  however,  who  had  been  defeated  by  the  Ger- 
mans in  Gaul,  he  might  be  capable  of  leading  the  Roman 
legions  to  victory,  at  least  the  glory  of  his  name  and  lineage 
might  supply  the  place  of  personal  reputation  in  arms.*  Au- 
gustus, indeed,  did  not  anticipate  any  serious  resistance  to 
his  demands.  He  intended  his  grandson  to  show  himself  on 
the  frontiers,  and  dictate  from  thence  the  terms  of  capitula- 
tion. Possibly  he  might  contemplate  some  extension  of  the 
limits  of  the  empire  on  the  side  of  Arabia,  and  a  renewal  of 
the  designs  which  Gallus  had  failed  in  accomplishing.  Geo- 
graphers and  men  of  science  were  to  follow  the  course  of  the 
armament:  among  these  was  Dionysius,  surnamed  the  Cir- 
cumnavigator, who  was  a  native  of  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf;  and  the  Mauretanian  Juba,  who  wrote  an  account  of 
the  expedition,  was  probably  an  attendant  upon  it.' 

Flushed  with  the  pride  of  youth  and  hopes  of  glory,  Caius 
crossed  the  ^Egean  Sea  on  his  way  to  his  appointed  province. 

Tiberius,  who  was  already  wearied  with  his  re- 

tween  cams      treat,   and  alarmed   perhaps  at  the  ease  with 

A.  u.  753.  '     which  his  place  had  been  supplied  at  the  head 

of  the  legions,  sought  an  interview  with  the 
young  imperator  at  Samos.4  Whatever  outward  marks  of 
respect  the  stripling  might  exhibit  towards  the  veteran  who 
now  paid  court  to  him,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  conversation 
which  occurred  between  them  gave  Tiberius  any  real  satisfao- 

1  Ovid,  Ara  Amand.  i.  17*7.  foil,  (which  seems  to  fix  the  date  of  publica- 
tion to  the  year  752) : 

"  Ecce  !  parat  Caesar  domito  quod  defuit  orbi 
Addere :  nunc,  Oriens  ultimo,  noster  eris. 
Parthe,  dabis  poenas ;  Crassi  gaudete  sepulti  .... 

Bellaque  non  puero  tractat  agenda  puer." 
1  Velleius,  ii.  102. 
»  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vi.  27.,  xii.  14. 

4  Suetonius  says  Samos ;  Dion,  Chios :  the  former  island  lay  more  directly 
in  the  proconsular  route  from  Corinth  to  Ephesus. 


B.  C.  1.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

tion.1  Augustus  had  been  induced  to  promise  his  grandson 
that  his  elder  rival  should  neither  be  recalled  to  Rome,  nor 
even  suffered  to  return  there,  except  with  his  permission; 
and  if  such  permission  was  now  sought  it  undoubtedly  was 
not  granted.  When  the  exile  represented  to  the  emperor 
that  he  had  withdrawn  to  Rhodes  solely  out  of  regard  for 
his  young  kinsmen,  and  from  anxiety  to  avoid  causing  them 
injury  or  annoyance,  he  was  coldly  bade  to  relinquish  all  con- 
cern for  relatives  from  whom  he  had  so  perversely  severed 
himself.4 

From  Samos,  Caius  proceeded  into  Syria,  and  from  thence 
despatched  the  imperious  demands  he  was  instructed  to  make 
upon  the  Parthian  monarch,  enjoining  him  to  caiusgoeato 
remove  his  creature  Tigranes,  and  allow  the  jJSEffilta?* 
return  of  Artavasdes  to  the  throne  of  Armenia ;  °f  hisp?Bsl£on 
but  while  he  left  these  potent  spells  to  operate  *io™-v  753 
in  his  absence,  he  made  a  progress  himself  in  B- c- J- 
an  opposite  direction.  The  throne  of  Judea  had  been  recently 
rendered  vacant  by  the  death  of  Herod.8  The  latter  years  of 
this  prince's  life,  whose  successful  dexterity,  rather  than  any 
grandeur  in  his  designs  or  brilliancy  in  his  exploits,  had 
earned  him  the  title  of  the  Great,  had  been  marked  with 
more  bloody  and  repeated  atrocities  than  even  his  earlier 
career.  Ten  wives  had  borne  him  a  numerous  progeny,  to 
poison  every  moment  of  his  existence  with  fear  and  hatred. 
His  jealousy  had  latterly  been  roused  against  the  children  he 
had  brought  back  from  Rome,  and  exalted  so  high  in  his 

1  Velleius  Paterculus,  whose  flattery  of  his  patron  Tiberius  is  everywhere 
transparent,  wishes  it  to  appear  that  even  in  disgrace  and  exile  he  was  treated 
by  Caius  as  his  superior :  "  Convento  prius  Tiberio  Nerone,  cui  omnem  hono- 
rem  ut  superiori  habuit,"  ii.  301.  Dion,  on  the  contrary,  says,  virfiwrrev  oi>x 
rt  '6r<a  Taiy  oAAo  /col  ro7s  HIT*  OUTOV  o§<r<,  Iv.  11.  Suetonius  speaks  even  more 
strongly  of  the  contempt  into  which  Tiberius  had  fallen. 

*  Suet.  Tib.  11. :  "  Ultro  admonitus  est  dimitteret  omnem  curam  suorum, 
quos  tarn  cupide  reliquisset." 

3  The  death  of  Herod  was  marked  by  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  just  before 
the  passover  in  the  year  u.  c.  750,  B.  c.  4  ;  therefore  towards  the  end  of  March 
(Clinton,  Fast.  Hell.  iii.  256.)  or  the  beginning  of  April  (Ideler,  Chronol.  ii. 
391.  foil.).  Joseph.  Antiq.  Jud.  xvii.  8.  1.  See  Fischer,  Roem.  Zeit.  p.  420. 


216  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

favour,  and  he  had  caused  them  both  to  be  put  to  death  with 
a  vast  number  of  their  friends  and  presumed  adherents. 
Antipater,  another  son,  the  instigator  of  these  enormities, 
had  soon  after  shared  the  same  fate.  He  had  fallen  under  a 
charge  of  treason  to  his  father ;  but  Herod  seems  to  have 
asked  permission  of  Augustus  to  punish  him  capitally.  The 
emperor,  after  some  delay,  thought  proper  to  leave  the  young 
man's  fate  in  his  parent's  hands,  and,  well  aware  as  he  was 
what  that  fate  would  be,  he  may  have  then  made  the  unfeel- 
ing jest  recorded  among  his  witty  sayings  by  Macrobius,  I  had 
rather  be  Herod's  swine  than  his  son.1  Other  sons,  however, 
still  survived  to  ascend  the  blood-stained  eminence.  The  will 
of  the  deceased  monarch  appointed,  subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  Roman  power,  that  Archelaus  and  Antipas,  the  chil- 
dren of  Malthace,  should  assume  authority,  the  one  in  Judea, 
the  other  in  the  district  of  Galilee,  while  Philip,  the  offspring 
of  Cleopatra,  should  bear  rule  in  the  Trans-Jordanic  region 
of  Ituraa.  Caius  may  have  gone  to  Jerusalem  to  confirm 
these  dispositions.  When  there,  he  offended  the  Jews  by 
refusing  to  enter  their  temple,  and  assist  at  their  national 
worship,  an  act  of  haughty  reserve,  of  which,  however,  the 
emperor  signified  his  approval.  Agrippa,  indeed,  had  offered 
vows  and  sacrifices  on  that  same  spot ;  but  Augustus  remem- 
bered that  he  had  himself  refrained  from  visiting  the  shrines 
of  the  Egyptian  divinities.  He  considered  it  unseemly  in  the 
chiefs  of  the  Roman  religion  to  betray  any  token  of  interest 
in  the  rites  of  the  foreigner.8 

Caius  entered  upon  his  consulship  in  Syria  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  year  754.    During  his  progress  among 
the  states  and  potentates  of  the  East,  his  tutor 

Cains  in  Syria.     T    ...  .  *,      . 

A.  D.  i.          .Lollius  was  chiefly  intent  on  exactions  and  plun- 
der.   The  charge  of  avarice  which  had  been  for- 

1  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  4. :  "  Porcum  quam  filium :  "  but  Augustus  undoubt- 
edly used  the  Greek,  Zv  ^  \>i6v. 

8  Suet  Oct.  93.  Oros.  vii.  3.  This  Christian  writer,  who  assigns  this 
event  to  752,  the  year  in  which  he  places  the  birth  of  our  Lord,  declares  that 
the  great  scarcity  which  afflicted  Rome  six  years  after  was  a  punishment  for 
this  insult  to  the  true  God. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  217 

merly  made  against  him  in  Gaul,  and  which  he  had  then  suc- 
ceeded in  defeating  or  evading,  was  now  redoubled,  and  with 
a  different  result.  The  Parthians  divulged  his  guilt  in  receiv- 
ing bribes  for  betraying  the  secrets  of  the  republic.  He  was 
denounced  by  Caius  to  the  emperor,  and  if  he  escaped  public 
disgrace  and  punishment,  he  owed  it  perhaps  to  the  oppor- 
tuneness of  his  death,  which  was  not  without  suspicion  of  vio- 
lence.1 When  Augustus  discovered  that  his  grandson's  oppo- 
sition to  the  return  of  Tibrerius  had  been  prompted  by  this 
worthless  adviser,  he  became  himself  more  amenable  to  the 
entreaties  of  Livia.  With  the  consent,  it  is  said,  of  Caius, 
he  now  summoned  the  exile  to  Rome,  requiring,  however, 
the  condition  that  he  should  abstain  from  taking  part  in  pub- 
lic affairs.  At  this  restriction  Tiberius  may  have  smiled  in 
secret:  the  fortunes  of  the  Imperial  house,  flourishing  as 
they  seemed  at  the  opening  manhood  of  Julia's  children, 
were  not  yet  beyond  the  stroke  of  an  adverse  fate."  Scarcely 
had  he  regained  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  emperor,  after 
eight  years  of  absence,  than  the  second  of  the  young  Ca3sars 
fell  sick  and  died.  Lucius  had  been  sent  on  a  mission  into 
Spain ;  but  he  got  no  further  than  Massilia, 

e  ••«.•:  Mission  of  Lu- 

where  his  brief  career  was  arrested  in  the  sum-  cms  Caesar  to 
nier  of  755,  in  the  course  of  which  season  the  deatn'at  Mas- 
elder    brother    proceeded    also  to   enforce    his     '*'.  0.2. 
orders  with  regard  to  the  affairs  of  Armenia,  as 
to  which  ,he  had  received  no  satisfaction.3    Caius  summoned 
Phraates  to  an  interview,  which  took  place  on  an  island  in 
the  Euphrates,  where  the  two  great  empires  which  divided 
the  world  were  represented  by  the  sovereign  of  the  one  and 
the  presumptive  heir  to  the  other.4     The  Roman  officers  and 
soldiers,  drawn  up  on  the  bank,  acknowledged  themselves  the 

1  Suet.  Tib.  13. ;  Veil.  ii.  102. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  ix.  35. 

2  Velleius,  ii.  99.,  after  the  event,  says,  "  Magna  nee  incerta  spe  futuro- 
rum." 

3  Veil.  ii.  102. ;  Suet.  Oct.  65. 

4  The  passage  in  Velleius  is  corrupt,  and  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether  the 
Parthian  monarchy  was  represented  by  its  king  Phraates  or  by  his  son  Phraa- 
taces.     Cornp.  Dion,  Iv.  11. 


218  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

instruments  of  a  military  monarchy,  and  might  already,  per- 
haps, anticipate  the  time  when  they  should  in  turn  be  ac- 
knowledged as  its  masters.1  Sufficient  explanation  or  sub- 
mission having  been  offered  by  the  Parthian,  who  promised 
henceforth  to  desist  from  interference  with  the  affairs  of  Ar- 
menia, the  two  chiefs  entertained  each  other  alternately  on 
the  opposite  banks  of  the  river.  The  death  of  Artavasdes, 
however,  at  this  moment,  opened  to  Tigranes  another  chance 
of  maintaining  himself,  by  which  he  profited,  and  succeeded 
by  adroit  flattery  in  securing  the  favour  of  the  Roman  rulers. 
Augustus  condescended  to  accept  his  submission ;  but  in  the 
mean  time,  either  apprehending  a  refusal,  or  hoping  to  extort 
better  terms  by  force,  he  defied  the  young  Cassar  to  a  trial 
A.  D.  3.  of  arms."  In  756  Caius  advanced,  but  on  arriving 
A.U.  758.  before  the  walls  of  Artagira,  and  admitting  the 
governor  Addon,  on  his  offer  of  capitulation,  into  his  presence, 
he  received  from  him  a  treacherous  wound.  From  the  effects 
of  this  injury  his  constitution,  which  was  perhaps,  like  his 
brother's,  weakly,  was  never  able  to  rally.  Bodily  suffering 
seems  to  have  affected  his  temper.  During  the  brief  remnant 
of  his  life  he  indulged  the  petulance  of  his  humour  and  his 
natural  bias  to  idle  and  frivolous  amusements.3  There  were 
now  no  matters  of  importance  to  detain  him  in  the  East.  He 
requested  permission,  however,  to  remain  in  Syria,  and  to 
throw  off  for  a  time  the  cares  of  his  august  station.  To  the 
latter  part  of  this  request  Augustus  consented,  though  with 
great  reluctance,  communicating  it,  as  a  matter  of  imperial 

1  Velleius,  who  was  an  eye-witness,  seems  to  have  felt  that  this  event  con- 
stituted an  epoch  in  history.     "  Quod  spectaculum  stantis  ex  diverso,  hinc  Ro- 
mani,  illinc  Parthorum  exercitus,  cum  duo  inter  se  eminentissima  imperiorum 
et  hominum  coirent  capita,  perquam  clarum  et  memorabile,  sub  initia  stipendi- 
orum  meorum  tribuno  militum  mihi  visere  contigit."    (ii.  101.) 

2  This  is  the  statement  of  the  Excerpta  de  Legationibus,  inserted  in  this 
place  by  Ursinus  (Dion,  edit.  Tauchnitz),  but  not  admitted  into  Sturz's  edition. 
There  is  much  confusion  in  the  remains  of  Dion's  work  at  this  place.      Iv.  11. 

3  Such,  I  think,  is  the  insinuation  of  Velleius,  whatever  it  may  be  really 
worth:  "Ex  eo  ut  corpus  minus  habile,  ita  animum  minus  utilem  reipubli.-as 
habuit."    ii.  102. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  219 

concern,  to  his  obsequious  senate  :  but  he  earnestly  exhorted 
the  prince  to  return  at  least  to  Italy.1  Caius  prepared  to 
obey,  and  passed  by  sea  from  Syria  into  Lycia.  But  his 
health  was  now  rapidly  sinking,  and  at  the  town  of  Limyra 
he  finally  succumbed,  eighteen  months  after  the  death  of  his 
brother.  The  citizens  were  startled  as  well  as  DeathofCaiua 
distressed  at  this  recurring  fatality.  Their  sus-  Ca38ar- 
picions  had  been  already  more  than  once  excited,  and  now, 
when  the  tardy  return  of  Tiberius  to  Rome  so  nearly  coin- 
cided with  the  removal  of  both  his  most  prominent  rivals,  it 
was  not  unnatural  that  they  should  revive  with  redoubled 
force.2  It  might  be  difficult  to  connect  the  death  of  Lucius 
in  Gaul  or  of  Caius  in  Asia  with  Livia  and  Tiberius  at  Rome  ; 
but  poison  operates  in  secret,  and  such  secret  operations,  in 
the  estimation  of  the  vulgar,  may  dispense  with  the  ordinary 
laws  both  of  time  and  space.3 

But  the  race  of  Agrippa  was  not  yet  exhausted,  and  the 
rival  branch  of  the  imperial  house  can  scarcely  have  contem- 
plated wading  deliberately  through  the  blood  of  Augustus  re- 
so  many  competitors.    Agrippa  Postumus,  born  and^JvesTshim 
after  the  death  of  his  father,  was  now  in  his  fif-  SH^SSJ* 
teenth  year,  and  might  prove  worthy  of  succeed-  [°™  ofCfive 
ing  to  the  place  of  his  deceased  brothers  in  the  yea£B-D  4 
affections  of  Augustus,  and  the  hopes  of  the  peo-      *••  "•  '«• 

1  The  affection  of  Augustus  for  his  grandson  is  attested  by  the  book  of 
letters  he  addressed  to  him  while  absent  on  this  expedition,  some  fragments  of 
which  have  been  preserved  by  Aulus  Gellius,  xv.  7.  3.  "  Ave  mi  Cai,  meus 
ocellus  jucundissimus,  quern  semper  medius  fidius  desidero  cum  a  me  abes  r 
sed  prsecipue  diebus  talibus  qualis  est  hodiernus,  oculi  mei  requirunt  meum 
Caium :  quern  ubicunque  hoc  die  fuisti,  spero  laetum  et  bene  valentem  cele- 
brasse  quartum  et  sexagesimum  natalem  meum  (Sept.  24.  754.)  ....  Deos 
autem  oro,ut  mihi  quantumcunque  superest  temporis,  id  salvis  vobis  traducere 
liceat  in  statu  reipublicae  felicissimo,  avSpayaBovvruv  vpStv  Kalv  5iu5ex<'At«»'a:»' 
stationem  meam."  Both  the  princes  were  at  this  time  alive. 

»  Dion,  Iv.  11. ;  Tac.  Ann.  i.  13. ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vii.  46. 

*  The  Cenotaphium  Pisanum,  a  monument  still  hi  existence,  erected  in 
memory  of  the  young  Csesars  by  the  townspeople  of  Pisae,  who  had  recently 
chosen  Lucius  as  their  patron,  exhibits  a  long  and  curious  inscription  in  their 
honour.  Orelli,  Inscr.  i.  162.  Caius  died  in  February,  757. 


220  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

pie.  But  whatever  the  emperor's  inclinations  might  be,  he 
felt  the  claim  his  countrymen  had  upon  him,  and  was  too 
magnanimous  to  sacrifice  the  welfare  of  the  state  to  a  pri- 
vate partiality.  He  was  deeply  distressed  at  the  loss  of  the 
youths  in  whom  he  had  anticipated,  not  only  props  for  his 
own  declining  strength,  but  powerful  protectors  of  the  pub- 
lic interests.  Amidst  all  the  outward  appearance  of  power 
and  magnificence  which  surrounded  his  administration,  he 
could  not  fail  to  perceive  how  precarious  was  the  founda- 
tion on  which  the  prosperity  of  the  empire  now  rested. 
Every  year  resistance  sprang  up,  in  some  shape  or  other,  on 
one  of  the  extended  frontiers  of  his  dominions,  and  a  presen- 
timent might  sometimes  intrude  on  his  thoughtful  mind,  of  a 
dire  reverse  to  be  one  day  experienced  by  his  arms.  The 
moral  force  of  his  government  was  founded  on  its  success, 
and  he  was  nervously  sensible  to  the  consequences  which 
might  ensue  upon  a  great  public  disaster.  Tiberius  alone 
could  now  supply  to  him  the  place  of  his  trusty  Agrippa. 
He  determined  accordingly  to  devolve  openly  upon  him  a 
share  in  the  government,  and  for  this  purpose  insisted,  not- 
withstanding his  pretended  reluctance,  that  he  should  accept, 
in  conjunction  with  himself,  the  powers  of  the  tribunate  for  a 
second  quinquennium.1  When  Tiberius  had  before  been 
honoured  with  this  distinction,  it  had  been  accompanied  with 
dismissal  to  the  provinces,  and  followed  by  removal  from 
affairs.  But  with  the  death  of  the  young  Caesars,  and  his 
own  readmission  to  the  cares  of  state,  the  position  of  Tiberius 
had  become  materially  changed.  This  formal  investiture  now 
placed  him  at  once  on  the  same  footing  as  that  enjoyed  by 
the  veteran  Agrippa  during  his  latter  years :  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  was  universally  regarded  as  a  virtual 
introduction  to  the  first  place  in  the  empire.  I  do  it,  said  the 

1  Suet.  Tib.  16.  Dion,  Iv.  13.,  says  ten  years.  Veil.  ii.  103.:  "Quod 
post  Lucii  mortem  adhuc  Caio  vivo  facere  voluerat,  atque  vehementer  repug- 
nante  Nerone  erat  inhibitus,  post  utriusque  adolescentium  obitum  facere  per- 
severavit."  The  adoption  which  took  place  at  the  same  time  is  dated  June  27. 
A.  u.  757.  A.  D.  4. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  221 

emperor,  perhaps  with  a  sigh,  for  the  public  weal.  At  the 
same  time  he  adopted  Tiberius  into  his  own  fam-  Tiberius  is 
ily,  and  together  with  him  the  young  Agrippa,  the^juUanfom- 
to  learn  the  duties  of  his  station  under  the  aus-  ily- 
pices  of  his  step-father.  Tiberius  was  required,  moreover,  to 
adopt  in  his  turn  Germanicus,  the  eldest  son  of  his  late  brother 
Drusus.  Whatever  were  the  anxieties  and  intrigues  of  Livia, 
they  might  now,  for  a  time  at  least,  be  allayed.  The  pro- 
gramme of  the  succession  was  significantly  shadowed  out: 
Tiberius  had  been  ordered  to  assume  his  place  at  the  head 
of  the  senate,  the  people,  and  the  army,  and  was  now  ex- 
hibited before  the  eyes  of  the  citizens  as  the  partner  of  the 
emperor's  honours  as  well  as  of  his  counsels.1 

After  the  ceremony  of  his  adoption,  Tiberius  departed 
for  the  German  frontier,  to  undertake  a  third  expedition, 
the  fortunes  of  which  will  be  presently  related, 

,.        ,,       ,  „   .,  .        .       ,,     .J  \    Continued 

for  the  honour  01  the  empire  in  that  quarter,  labours  of 
Meanwhile  Augustus,  though  saddened  with  dis- 
appointments, and  sated  perhaps  with  the  gratification  of  his 
ambition,  still  plodded  on  with  admirable  industry  in  the 
career  of  civil  reformation.  The  constructive  and  administra- 
tive tendency  of  the  Roman  mind  was  developed  in  none  of 
the  great  men  of  the  republic  more  remarkably  than  in  the 
founder  of  the  empire.  The  security  of  his  own  power  he 
felt  to  be  now  thoroughly  established :  he  had  entered,  not 
long  before  this  period,  without  an  audible  murmur,  upon 
the  fourth  decennium  of  his  imperial  rule.8  He  could  not 
have  required  the  senate  any  longer  as  an  essential  instru- 
ment of  his  policy ;  its  actual  power  was  gone,  and  with  its 
power  its  consideration  had  collapsed;  yet  blinded  by  his 
ruling  idea  of  constitutional  renovation,  he  still  persisted  in 

1  Suet.  Oct.  65.,  Tib.  15. ;  Tac.  Ann.  i.  3. ;  Dion,  IT.  12.  Veil.  ii.  103. : 
"  Laetitiam  illius  diei,  concursumque  civitatis,  et  vota  paene  inferentium  coelo 
manus,  spemque  conceptam  perpetuse  securitatis  aeternitatisque  Rom.  imperil 
vix  persequi  poterimus,  nedum  hie  implere." 

8  Veil.  ii.  104,  105. 

8  Towards  the  end  of  the  year  756.    Dion,  Iv.  12. 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

decking  the  victim  he  had  already  sacrificed.  In  fact,  it  was 
in  irritating  the  pride  and  self-love  of  individual  nobles  that 
his  only  danger  now  lay.  The  people  might  make  tumultu- 
ary assemblies,  and  demand  with  importunate  cries  the  recall 
of  his  banished  daughter  :  such  demonstrations  he  could 
easily  repress,  and  would  scarcely  condescend  to  notice.  But 
when  he  repeated  this  year,  for  the  third  time,  his  dreaded 
Third  revision  scrutiny  of  the  senate,  and  the  expulsion  of  its 
°f  IA  V  4nate'  unworthy  members,  he  once  more  deliberately 
A.  u.  757.  imperilled  life  and  power  merely  to  satisfy  the 
sentiment  of  symmetry  and  completeness.  He  had  now  no 
Agrippa  to  stand-  between  him  and  the  angry  passions  of  the 
degraded  senators  ;  he  even  allowed  Tiberius  to  take  his 
departure  from  Rome  before  he  committed  himself  to  the 
task.  Acting  through  a  board  of  some  influential  members 
of  the  body,  he  caused  an  investigation  to  be  again  made  into 
the  lives  and  means  of  the  whole  :  all  such  as  had  reason  to 
fear  the  result  of  the  inquiry  he  invited,  as  on  a  former  occa- 
sion, to  retire  of  their  own  accord  ;  but  when  few  were  found 
to  make  this  spontaneous  abdication,  he  acted  with  indulgence 
towards  them,  expelling  only  a  small  number,  while  he  quali- 
fied others,  by  adding  to  their  fortunes  from  his  own  bounty.1 
The  violence  indeed  of  the  magnates  of  the  last  genera- 
tion had  been  quelled  or  moderated  in  their  children.  Augus- 
of  tus  needed  not  now  to  conduct  his  inquiry  with 


C"A!  D.  4.  a  breast-plate  under  his  gown  in  the  midst  of  the 
A.  u.  757.  senate  house.  Nevertheless  the  covert  designs 
of  the  ambitious  or  the  offended  never  allowed  his  vigilance 
to  slumber.  A  plot  was  formed  for  his  destruction,  at  the 
head  of  which  was  a  Cnaeus  Cornelius  Cinna,  described  as  a 
son  of  Faustus  Sulla  by  a  daughter  of  the  great  Pompeius.2 


1  Suet.  Oct.  53.     Dion,  Iv.  13.  :  irpadrepds  re  KO.\  oKviipArtpos  vieb  rov 
irpbr  rb  riav  $ov\fvrS>v  TKTIV  a.irf\QavsffQai  yeyovtas. 

4  The  story  of  China's  conspiracy  is  told  by  Seneca,  de  Clem.  9.,  and  Dion, 
Iv.  14.  foil.  They  agree  in  the  main  fact  ;  but  Seneca  is  our  authority  for  the 
details  of  the  interview  between  Augustus  and  his  enemy,  while  Dion  has 
doubtless  invented  his  long  conversation  between  the  emperor  and  Livia. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  223 

Although  this  man  does  not  appear  to  have  been  personally 
aggrieved  by  the  emperor's  measures,  he  may  have  found 
instruments  for  his  private  ambition  in  the  mortification  and 
resentment  of  the  disgraced  senators.  Proud  of  his  descent 
and  oblivious  of  the  favours  he  had  received  at  the  hands  of 
Augustus,  who  had  made  that  descent  no  bar  to  his  advance- 
ment (indeed  it  had  been  the  uniform  policy  of  the  emperor 
to  place  the  great  names  of  the  oligarchy  at  the  head  of  his 
imperial  democracy),  he  was  vain  enough  to  imagine  that  he 
could  himself  wield  the  powers  of  empire,  and  that  the  old 
nobility  would  acquiesce  in  his  supremacy.  One  of  his  ac- 
complices, however,  disclosed  to  the  emperor  the  design  to 
surprise  him  in  the  act  of  sacrificing,  and  slay  him  at  the  foot 
of  the  altar.  Time  was  when  Augustus  would  have  rushed 
impetuously  to  punish  such  an  attempt  in  a  paroxysm  of  fear 
or  anger.  But  these  passions  had  now  cooled  down:  he 
could  reason  calmly  with  himself ;  he  could  take  deliberate 
counsel  with  his  advisers,  how  best  to  baffle  designs  which 
neither  the  certainty  nor  the  severity  of  punishment  had 
hitherto  availed  to  repress.  The  Romans  ascribed  to  Livia 
the  merit  of  persuading  him  that  mercy  was  also  policy.  A 
remarkable  scene  followed.  While  the  chief  criminal  was 
yet  unconscious  that  his  plot  was  detected,  Augustus  sum- 
moned him  into  his  cabinet,  and  ordered  a  chair  to  be  set 
for  him  by  the  side  of  his  own ;  and  then,  desiring  not  to  be 
interrupted,  proceeded  to  deliver  a  discourse,  which,  accord- 
ing to  his  custom  in  matters  of  importance,  he  had  already 
prepared,  and  perhaps  committed  to  writing.  He  reminded 

Seneca,  however,  calls  the  conspirator  Lucius,  and  places  the  event  in  the 
fortieth  year  of  Augustus  (A.  u.  731.),  the  scene  in  Gaul;  Dion,  on  the  other 
hand,  gives  the  name  of  Cnaeus,  and  supposes  the  circumstances  to  have  oc- 
curred twenty-six  years  later,  and  at  Rome.  It  may  be  observed  that  a  son  of 
Faustus  Sulla  must  have  been  at  least  fifty  at  this  latter  date,  nor  do  we  know 
why  he  should  bear  the  name  of  China,  though  an  adoption  is  not  impossible. 
Suetonius  does  not  mention  this  among  the  conspiracies  he  enumerates  against 
Augustus.  But,  whatever  doubt  there  may  be  about  the  person,  the  period, 
and  the  place,  the  only  point  of  importance,  the  fact,  namely,  of  a  conspicu- 
ous act  of  clemency  on  the  emperor's  part,  may  be  considered  as  established. 


224  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  4. 

his  uneasy  auditor  of  the  grace  he  had  bestowed  upon  him, 
though  a  political  enemy  and  the  son  of  an  enemy ;  he  had 
granted  him  life,  had  enriched  and  distinguished  him.  He 
had  raised  him  to  the  honour  of  the  priesthood,  over  more  than 
one  competitor  from  the  ranks  of  the  Caesareans  themselves. 
After  all  these  favours,  he  continued,  how  could  you  plot  to 
take  away  my  life  ?  Cinna  could  keep  silence  no  longer : 
he  vehemently  disclaimed  the  horrid  imputation.  You  pro- 
mised not  to  interrupt  me,  retorted  Augustus,  and  proceeded 
calmly  with  his  harangue,  unfolding  all  the  details  of  the 
conspiracy,  and  finally  asking  what  end  the  traitor  could 
have  proposed  to  himself;  how  could  he  hope  to  fill  the 
place  of  the  emperor,  who  could  not  maintain  his  dignity 
as  a  private  citizen,  but  had  recently  suffered  defeat  in  a 
legal  encounter  with  a  freedman?  Be  assured,  he  added, 
it  is  not  myself  alone  who  stand  in  your  way,  if  such  be 
your  ambition:  neither  the  Paulli  nor  the  Cossi,  the  Fabii 
nor  the  Servilii,  will  suffer  you  to  assume  dominion  over 
them.  Thus  did  he  continue  for  more  than  two  hours,  to 
pour  forth  his  premeditated  argument,  before  he  arrived  at 
the  unexpected  conclusion,  in  which  he  assured  the  culprit, 
not  of  forgiveness  only,  but  of  renewed  favour.  Let  this, 
Clemency  of  ^e  sa^>  be  the  commencement  of  friendship  and 
Augustus.  confidence  between  us.  Shortly  afterwards  he  con- 
ferred on  him  the  consulship,  and  found  him  ever  afterwards 
a  grateful  and  sincere  adherent.1  Cinna,  at  his  death,  be- 
queathed his  property  to  his  illustrious  benefactor ;  and  this, 
it  was  remarked,  was  the  last  occasion  of  any  attempt  being 
made  against  the  life  of  the  magnanimous  Augustus.9 

Such  is  the  story, — the  romance,  should  we  call  it?, — 

1  Cn.  Cornelius  Cinna  was  consul  with  Valerius  Messala,  A.  u.  758.  It 
was  this  circumstance,  perhaps,  that  induced  Dion  to  place  the  conspiracy  in 
the  year  preceding. 

a  Senec.  /.  c. :  "  Haec  cum  dementia  ad  salutem  securitatemque  perduxit ; 
hsec  gratum  ac  favorabilem  reddidit ;  quamvis  nondum  subactis  reipubl.  cervi- 
cibus  manum  imposuisset;  hsec  hodieque  prsestat  illi  famam,  qua?  vix  vivis 
principibus  servit." 


A.U.  757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  225 

which  has  embalmed  the  fame  of  the  second  Caesar's  clem- 
ency, and  has  served  sometimes  to  balance  in  the  Reflections 
eyes  of  posterity  the  selfishness  and  cruelty  of  his  m™  this  story, 
youth.  It  is  related  with  ample  details  by  two  writers  of 
authority,  whose  testimonies  may  be  considered  as  perfectly 
independent.1  One  of  them  was  living  at  the  time,  and  has 
obtained  credit,  not  without  reason,  for  his  notices  of  his- 
torical events  interspersed  among  writings  of  a  very  different 
character.  The  suspicion  which  would  ordinarily  attach  to 
such  details  of  private  conversation,  is  removed  by  the  cir- 
cumstance, elsewhere  attested,  that  Augustus  did  habitually 
prepare  and  commit  to  writing  the  discourses  he  was  about 
to  hold ;  not  only  harangues  before  the  senate  or  arguments 
in  council,  but  even  confidential  deliberations  with  his  own 
consort.5  There  seems,  therefore,  no  reason  to  question  the 
general  correctness  of  the  sketch  of  this  remarkable  inter- 
view, as  given  by  Seneca ;  and  assuming  its  authenticity,  it 
confirms  in  a  striking  manner  the  impression  we  have  already 
received  of  the  absence  of  any  public  spirit  in  the  opposition 
which  the  imperial  regime  still  occasionally  experienced.  It 
is  assumed  without  a  remark,  that  the  object  of  the  conspira- 
tor was  simply  to  leap  himself  into  the  seat  of  Augustus ;  that 
the  chiefs  of  the  old  nobility  would  resent  his  usurpation,  not 
as  a  public  wrong,  but  merely  as  a  grievance  to  themselves. 
The  pretence  of  liberty,  once  sanctioned  by  the  name  of  Bru- 
tus, was  too  transparent  to  be  advanced  again.  It  was  no 
better  than  a  pretence  fifty  years  before ;  it  had  ceased  to 

1  Seneca  and  Dion  Cassius,  II.  cc.  The  philosopher  is  supposed  to  have 
been  born  a  few  years  B.  c.,  perhaps  twenty  years  later  than  the  date  he  gives 
himself  for  the  story,  but  six  years  before  that  assigned  to  it  by  the  historian. 
His  father  lived  in  Rome,  and  the  great  topics  of  the  day  were  of  course  fa- 
miliar to  him.  Dion,  on  the  other  hand,  consulted  the  archives  and  historical 
writers  of  note ;  but,  as  a  Greek,  he  is  not  likely  to  have  made  acquaintance 
with  the  second-hand  speculations  in  moral  science  of  a  Roman. 

5  Suet.  Oct.  84. :  "  Sennones  quoque  cum  singulis,  etiam  cum  Li  via  sua 
graviores,  non  nisi  in  scriptis  et  e  libello  habebat,  ne  plus  minusve  loqueretur 
ex  tempore."     It  may  be  added  that  Augustus  would  naturally  take  care  that 
an  incident  so  much  to  his  credit  should  be  circumstantially  detailed. 
VOL.  iv. — 15 


226  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.4. 

be  admissible  even  as  a  pretence  now.  Fifty  years  before 
the  commonwealth  might  have  boasted  of  one  enthusiast  in 
Cicero,  of  a  solitary  fanatic  in  Cato  :  but  the  last  of  the  race 
of  heroes  had  left  no  successors,  and  the  old  fictions  of  the 
republic  were  no  longer  seriously  regarded  by  a  single  citizen 
of  Rome. 

Augustus  had  thus  obtained  the  licence  which  he  had 
once  complained  was  denied  to  him  alone ;  secure  in  the 
Private  habits  enjoyment  of  his  power,  he  could  now  exhibit 
hfAeh^iour  Just  resentment  without  necessarily  entailing 
rneni9Hiaveg  ^a^  consequences  on  its  object.1  From  prin- 
and  to  women.  cjpie)  as  well  as  from  natural  disposition,  he 
maintained  in  all  their  strictness  the  rules  of  friendship  or 
fellowship  as  practised  by  the  nobles  of  Rome.  To  admit  a 
companion  to  his  hours  of  relaxation  was  with  him  a  matter 
of  solemn  ceremony,  and  established  ever  after  a  mutual 
claim  to  confidence  and  regard.  These  connexions  were 
hallowed  by  the  reciprocal  attendance  of  the  parties  on  occa- 
sions of  family  interest ;  they  were  cemented  by  correspon- 
dence, by  presents,  and  various  tokens  of  mutual  esteem  or 
good  will.  Such  were  the  offices  or  duties  of  friendship, 
which  constituted  a  large  part  of  Roman  ethics.  Such  be- 
nevolence Augustus  rigidly  exacted  from  his  living  associates : 
it  was  understood  that  he  expected  it  even  from  the  dying ; 
and  though  he  was  said  to  show  no  avidity  for  testamentary 
bequests,  and  never  to  have  accepted  them  from  persons  with 
whom  he  was  personally  unconnected,  he  was  strict  in  requir- 
ing such  marks  of  his  friends'  regard,  and  scrutinized  them 
with  jealous  solicitude,  as  genuine  indications  of  feeling.  If 
gratified  by  a  liberal  bequest  he  generally  waived  it  for  the 
benefit  of  the  deceased's  kindred.  In  the  treatment  of  his 
personal  attendants,  his  slaves,  or  his  freedmen,  a  class  who 
were  often  more  really  intimate  with  the  noble  Roman  than 
the  fellow-citizens  whom  he  admitted  to  his  friendship,  Au- 

1  On  the  occasion  of  the  suicide  of  Callus,  "  illacrymavit,  et  vicem  suam 
conquestus  est,  quod  soli  sibi  non  liceret  amicia  quantum  vellet  irasci."  Suet. 
Oct.  66.  See  above,  ch.  xxxiii. 


A.U.  757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  227 

gustus  obtained  a  character  for  mildness  and  consideration.1 
Law  and  custom,  however,  gave  him  power  of  life  and  death 
over  the  menials  of  his  household,  and  he  hardly  resented 
with  greater  sternness  the  crime  of  one  of  these  who  was 
convicted  of  adultery  with  a  matron,  than  that  of  another 
who  had  opened  his  letters  for  a  bribe.3  His  grandson's 
attendants  in  the  East  were  still  slaves  of  the  imperial  family, 
and  upon  these,  on  proof  of  their  violence  or  peculation,  he 
exercised  extreme  severity.  A  third  class  of  the  emperor's 
intimates  were  the  women,  with  whom  he  amused  his  leisure. 
Public  opinion  would  have  tolerated  any  amount  of  licentious- 
ness in  this  particular,  had  the  amours  of  the  chief  of  the 
citizens  been  confined  to  freedwomen  or  strangers.  But  to 
force  a  slave  was  reputed  indecorous,  while  to  seduce  a 
matron  was  branded  as  a  crime.  The  indulgences  of  Au- 
gustus were  said  to  be  of  the  latter  kind.  His  apologists 
could  only  allege  that  his  intrigues  were  a  matter  not  of  pas- 
sion, but  of  state-craft,  and  that  he  extracted  the  secrets  of  his 
adversaries  from  the  weakness  of  their  dissolute  consorts. 
This  refers,  perhaps,  to  the  period  of  the  great  struggles  of 
his  early  career;  no  such  explanation  could  be  offered  in 
excuse  for  the  weakness  of  his  later  years,3  to  which  even 
Livia,  the  paragon  of  matronhood,  was  supposed  to  have  lent 
herself. 

The  vice  of  gaming  with  dice  must  seem  a  venial  offence 
in  a  man  whose  ordinary  pieces  were  nations,  and  whose 
stakes  were  empires.  Yet  upon  this  subject  the 

.     ,.  _  Amused  him- 

Komans  had  also  strong  prejudices,  and  Augus-  self  with  games 
tus  was  gravely  reproached  for  avowing  that  he 
amused  himself  in  his  family,  or  among  his  nearest  associates, 
with  games  of  chance  for  the  most  trifling  ventures.     He 

1  Yet  Augustus  never  condescended  to  ask  a  freedman  to  his  table,  except 
in  the  peculiar  instance  of  the  traitor  Menodorus.  Suet.  Oct.  74. 

-  Suet.  Oct.  67. :  "  Proculum mori  coegit ;  Thallo  ....  crura 

fregit." 

8  Dion,  Iviii.  2.  :  irdvra.  ra  SOKOVVTO.  avrtf  ^Se'tos  irotovffa,  tca\  p^rt  &\\o  n 
rZv  tKfivov  iro\virpaynovovffa,  Kal  ret  a<J>po5i'cna  avrov  aOvpna-ra  p-fiTf  Sicuicovaa 
/*7)T€  alaBavfaQvLi  rrpoatroiovnevT].  Comp.  Suet.  Oct.  69. 


228  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  4. 

played,  says  Suetonius,  openly  and  without  disguise,  even  in 
his  old  age ;  nor  did  he  confine  himself  to  the  genial  month 
of  December,  but  indulged  in  this  way  any  day  of  the  year, 
whether  of  business  or  recreation.1  Letters  have  been  pre- 
served in  which  he  recounts  to  Tiberius  his  bloodless  contests 
at  the  supper  table  with  Vinicius  and  Silius ;  how  they  had 
played,  for  pastime  not  for  gain,  sporting  a  single  denarius 
on  each  die,  and  sweeping  the  modest  stakes  with  the  lucky 
throw  of  the  Venus.  We  played  daily  through  the  five-day 
feast  of  Minerva,  and  kept  the  table  warm.  Your  brother 

was  most  vociferous*     Yet  he  lost  but  little  after  all 

Host  for  my  part  twenty  pieces :  but  then  Twos  generous,  as 
usual,  for  had  I  insisted  on  all  my  winnings,  or  retained  all  I 
gave  away,  I  should  have  gained  fifty.  But  I  like  to  be 
liberal,  and  I  expect  immortal  honour  for  it.  To  Julia  he 
wrote :  I  make  you  a  present  of  250  denarii,  the  sum  I  gave 
to  each  of  my  guests  to  play  at  dice  with  at  supper,  or,  if  they 
pleased,  at  odd  and  even.9  The  biographer  seems  uncertain 
whether  he  ought  to  pass  over  such  errors  without  censure : 
he  contents  himself,  however,  with  adding  that  except  in  this 
matter  only  the  continence  of  the  emperor  was  signal,  and  he 
escaped  the  imputation  of  any  other  failing. 

The  moderation  of  Augustus  in  regard  to  the  size  and 
outward  show  of  his  residences  has  been  remarked  in  our 

review  of  his  public  character ;  it  may  be  added, 
taste  and  liter-    that  he  caused  even  a  house  which  Julia  had 

erected  to  be  pulled  down,  as  too  sumptuous 
and  splendid.4    In  the  interior  of  his  dwellings  he  might  have 

1  Suet.  Oct.  71. :  "  Alese  rumorem  nullo  modo  expavit,  lusitque  simpliciter 
et  palam,  etiam  senex ;  ac  prseterquam  Decembri  mense,  aliis  quoque,  festis 
profestisque  diebus."  Comp.  Martial,  iv.  14. : 

"Dum  blanda  vagus  alea  December 
Incertis  sonat  hinc  et  hinc  fritillis." 

*  This  allusion  to  Drusus  shows  that  the  letter  is  not  of  late  date ;  and  the 
words,  "  we  played  ytpovrutus,"  innocently,  as  old  men  do,  that  is,  for  amuse- 
ment merely,  does  not  imply  that  Augustus  and  his  party  were  themselves  old. 

*  Suet.  /.  c. :  "  Si  vellent  inter  se  inter  coenam  vel  tails  vel  par  impar  ludere." 
4  Suet  Oct.  73. 


A.  U.  757.]  TINDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

indulged  without  invidious  notice  in  the  luxurious  decorations 
affected  by  the  opulent  magnates.  It  was  from  a  peculiarity 
of  taste,  therefore,  rather  than  any  politic  calculation,  that, 
instead  of  works  of  painting  or  sculpture,  he  was  fond  of 
collecting  natural  curiosities  such  as  the  fossil  bones  of  mam- 
moths and  saurians,  which  were  found  in  abundance  in  his 
island  of  Capreae,  and  were  vulgarly  reputed  to  be  the  re- 
mains of  giants  and  heroes.  Thrown  from  his  earliest  years 
into  the  vortex  of  public  action,  and  absorbed  in  a  game  of 
life  and  death,  it  was  impossible  for  Augustus  to  imbibe 
tastes  which  are  seldom  acquired  except  by  reflection  and 
leisure.  Nor  had  he  the  temper  which  affects  connoisseur- 
ship  without  knowledge.  His  turn  of  mind  was  directed  to 
the  positive  and  practical,  and  he  disdained,  after  the  manner 
of  an  antique  Roman,  the  pretence  of  sentiment  or  aesthetic 
refinement.  Though  not  unversed  in  literature,  and  even  a 
composer,  like  every  well-bred  Roman,  both  in  prose  and 
verse,  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  took  any  interest  in 
ethical  speculations.1  The  companions  of  his  leisure  hours 
were  jurists,  grammarians,  and  physicians,  rather  than  phi- 
losophers, and  he  is  not  reported  to  have  lent  the  authority  of 
his  name  to  any  of  the  still  contending  schools  of  thought. 
The  logical  habit  of  his  mind  is  curiously  exemplified  in  the 
statement  that  he  insisted  on  writing  according,  not  to  estab- 
lished orthography,  but  to  spoken  sounds.*  To  the  objection 
that  were  such  a  practice  to  prevail,  it  would  obliterate  the 

1  Suetonius  {Oct.  85.)  enumerates  his  pieces :  a  reply  to  Brutus's  panegyric 
on  Cato  ("  rescripta  Bruto  de  Catone ") ;  verses  on  Sicily,  with  reference 
probably  to  his  campaigns  there ;  a  tragedy  of  Ajax,  which  he  blotted  out 
("  quaerentibus  amicis  quid  Ajax  ageret,  respondit  Ajacem  suum  in  spongiam 
incubuisse ") ;  an  account  of  his  own  life  as  far  as  the  Cantabrian  war,  in 
thirteen  books ;  and  finally,  an  Exhortation  to  Philosophy,  about  the  nature 
of  which  nothing  is  said,  and  which  may  have  merely  contained  elementary 
instruction  for  his  grandchildren.  Though  a  reader  of  ancient  poetry,  and 
especially  of  Greek  comedy,  his  attention  was  chiefly  directed  to  extracting 
from  it  rules  of  life  and  policy :  "  in  evolvendis  utriusque  linguae  auctoribus 
nihil  aeque  sectabatur  quam  praecepta  et  exempla  publice  vel  privatim  salubria." 

*  Suet.  Oct.  88. :  "  Videtur  eorum  potiua  sequi  opinionem  qui  perinde 
scribendum  ac  loquamur  existiment." 


230  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  4. 

historical  derivation  and  continuity  of  language,  he  would 
have  been  wholly  inaccessible.  Perhaps  he  would  have  been 
not  less  indifferent  to  the  argument,  that  it  would  throw  the 
great  mass  of  existing  literature  into  oblivion,  and  condemn 
even  the  remainder  to  be  retranscribed.  On  the  same  prin- 
ciple, however,  he  was  more  legitimately  careful  to  avoid 
affectation  and  curious  refinement  in  the  choice  of  words :  his 
chief  care,  it  is  said,  was  to  express  his  meaning  clearly,  and, 
with  this  view,  he  disregarded  even  grammatical  rules,  and 
took  no  pains  to  avoid  repetitions.  He  amused  himself 
with  ridiculing  the  opposite  vices  in  the  style  of  Maecenas, 
whose  sentences  he  compared  to  frizzled  ringlets,  and  whose 
language,  he  said,  seemed  steeped  in  myrrh  and  unguents. 
He  called  Antonius  a  madman,  for  writing  to  be  admired 
rather  than  understood;  nor  did  he  spare  his  own  pupil, 
Tiberius,  for  the  affectation  of  recondite  and  antique  phrase- 
ology. He  urged  his  grandchild,  Agrippina,  to  make  it  her 
aim  that  neither  readers  nor  hearers  should  have  any  trou- 
ble in  understanding  her.1  Meanwhile,  the  style  of  the  im- 
perial censor  himself,  which  must  have  been  a  strange  one, 
found  happily  no  imitators.  Nothing,  however,  remains  to 
tell  us  how  it  was  criticised  in  return  :  the  minute  particulars 
regarding  it  preserved  by  Suetonius  show  how  long  the 
Romans  retained  an  interest  in  everything  that  related  to 
their  great  emperor ;  but  even  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred 
years,  it  seemed  more  respectful  to  describe  his  peculiarities 
than  to  reprove  them. 

The  chief  of  the  great  empire,  the  head  of  so  many  depart- 
ments of  administration  and  the  supervisor  of  all,  had  every 
minute  of  his  day  occupied  to  overflowing.    The 

Augustus  ad-       j        ., 

dieted  to  super-  details  of  the  employment  of  his  time  may  indeed 

fill  us  with  astonishment,  when  we  reflect  that 

they  refer  not  to  the  overwrought  exertions  of  a  few  feverish 

years,  but  to  the  whole  course  of  a  long  life  engaged  in  pub- 

1  Suet.  Oct.  86.    There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  the  style  of  the  few  verses 
on  the  death  of  Virgil  ascribed  to  Augustus. 


A.U.  757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  231 

lie  affairs.  Yet  Augustus,  we  are  told,  never  suffered  busi- 
ness, even  during  his  campaigns,  to  stop  his  daily  practice 
of  declamation,  of  reading  and  writing  ;  and  the  speeches  he 
addressed  to  the  senate  and  other  bodies  were  always  care- 
fully meditated,  and  even  transcribed  before  delivery.1  With 
so  much  method,  such  constancy  of  purpose,  together  with 
the  self-control  which  pre-eminently  marked  him,  it  may 
seem  strange  to  us  to  read  that  he  was  as  timid  as  a  child  in 
all  that  related  to  the  superstitions  of  his  time.  He  trembled 
at  thunder  and  lightning,  not  from  the  vulgar  fear  of  their 
fatal  effects,  but  from  horror  at  their  occult  and  mysterious 
causes ;  he  marked  the  portents  which  seemed  to  attend  on 
his  own  career  not  less  anxiously  than  the  weakest  of  his 
subjects  ;  he  considered  his  own  and  others'  dreams  with  pain- 
ful solicitude,  and  observed  all  signs  and  auguries  with  a 
serious  curiosity.2  He  became,  in  fact,  the  victim  of  the 
excessive  precision  and  minuteness  of  his  observation  on 
all  subjects,  which  never  suffered  him  to  rest  in  the  broad 
principles  either  of  belief  or  scepticism,  but  constantly  ha- 
rassed him  with  vain  and  frivolous  inquiries  into  matters  on 
which  no  satisfaction  could  be  attained. 

After  all,  the  most  agreeable  feature  in  the  character  of 
Augustus,  is  the  good-humoured  cheerfulness,  which  sprang 
apparently  from  a  deep-seated  contentment,  and 

,    /  His  kindness 

showed  itself,  among  other  things,  in  the  pleas-  andgentie- 
ure  he  took  in  the  simple   sports   of  children, 
whom  he  was  always  glad  to  have  about  him  and  to  play 
with,  which  overflowed  also  in  tokens  of  affection  towards 
his  nearest  connexions.    His  playful  intercourse  with  Maece- 
nas and  Horace,  with  his  daughter  Julia,  with  his  grandsons 
Caius  and  Lucius,  and  even  with  the  morose  Tiberius,  was 
the  yearning  of  unaffected  feeling.    The  recorded  instances 
of  his  wit  and  repartee  all  bear  this  character  of  good  humour. 
Some  of  them  have  been  already  given  in  the  course  of  this 

1  Aurel.  Victor,  Epit.  1.:  "  Ut  nullus,  ne  in  procinctu  quidem,  laberetur 
dies  quin  legeret,  scriberet,  declamaret."    Comp.  Suet.  Oct.  84. 
•  Suet.  Oct.  90-92. 


232  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  4. 

narrative,  the  rest  perhaps  are  hardly  worth  repeating.1  But, 
as  Macrobius  remarks,  he  deserves  more  admiration  for  the 
sarcasms  he  suffered  to  be  addressed  to  himself,  some  of  which 
were  severely  cutting,  than  for  the  gentle  banter  he  indulged 
in  towards  others.  The  attainment  of  his  utmost  desires  had 
left  him  placable  in  his  animosities,  and  clement  from  temper 
as  well  as  policy.  If  a  Roman  had  any  true  sensibility,  it  was 
in  his  friendships  that  he  displayed  it,  and  towards  his  friends 
Augustus  was  both  constant  and  delicate.  A  generation  had 
now  grown  up  to  whom  the  horrors  of  the  proscriptions  were 
only  a  whispered  tale  ;  the  revolutionary  triumvir  had  become 
in  their  eyes  a  kind  and  genial  old  man,  grown  grey  in  serv- 
ing the  commonwealth,  and  still  the  guardian  genius  of  the 
country  he  had  saved.  Loudly  as  the  blessings  of  his  rule 
were  proclaimed,  they  felt  more  sensibly  than  poets  or  orators 
could  tell  them  that  his  life  was  the  pledge  of  their  contin- 
uance. As  he  grew  weaker,  and  betrayed  once  more  the  infir- 
mities of  nature,  which  had  caused  such  alarm  to  the  Romans 
in  his  younger  days,  even  the  best  of  patriots  must  have  admit- 
ted that  he  should  either  never  have  been  born,  or  else  should 
never  die.1  That  the  citizens  should  have  forgotten,  under 
their  own  vines  and  fig-trees,  the  crimes  he  had  committed 
against  their  unhappy  sires  may  not  be  hard  to  comprehend : 
it  is  more  difficult  to  understand  the  real  feelings  of  the  man 
who  had  done  such  things,  and  betrayed  to  the  close  of  life 
no  uneasy  recollection  of  them. 

1  See  especially  the  collection  of  his  jests  in  Macrob.  Sat.  i.  4.  In  some 
there  is  an  ingenious  play  upon  words  which  could  not  be  expressed  in  another 
language.  Perhaps  the  best  are  the  following :  "  Vettius  cum  monumentum 
patris  exarasset ;  ait  Augustus ;  Hoc  est  vere  monumentum  patris  colere  ; " 
and,  "  Cum  multi  Severe  Cassio  accusante  absolverentur ;  et  architectus  fori 
August!  exspectationem  operis  diu  traheret;  itajocatus  est,  Vellem  Cassius  et 
meum  forum  accuset." 

*  Such  may  be  supposed  to  be  the  meaning  of  Aurelius  Victor,  Epit.  1.: 
"  Cunctis  vulgo  jactantibus,  utinam  aut  non  nasceretur  aut  non  moreretur: 
alterura  enim  pessimi  exempli,  exitus  praeclari  alterum." 


A.U.  757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  233 


CHAPTEE    XXXYIII. 

TIBEEITJS,  ON  HIS  RETURN  FROM  RHODES,  AT  FIRST  TAKES  NO  PART  IN  PUBLIC 
AFFAIRS.  -  AFTER  THE  DEATH  OF  CAIUS  HE  COMES  AGAIN  FORWARD.  -  HIS 
MISSION  TO  GAUL  IN  757.  -  HE  REACHES  THE  ELBE.  -  THE  MARCOMANNI 
AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAROBODUUS.  -  EXPEDITION  OF  TIBERIUS  AGAINST 
THE  MARCOMANNI  IN  759.  -  FRUSTRATED  BY  THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PANNO- 
NIANS.  -  ALARM  AT  ROME.  -  BANISHMENT  OF  AGRIPPA  POSTUMUS.  -  THE 
PANNONIANS  ARE  REDUCED  BY  TIBERIUS  AND  GERMANICUS,  A.  U.  759-762- 

—  INTRIGUES  AGAINST  AUGUSTUS.  —  BANISHMENT   OF   THE   YOUNGER   JULIA.  — 
BANISHMENT    OF   THE    POET    OTIDIUS   NASO,    761.  -  DISCONTENT    OF   THE    CITI- 
ZENS. -  THE    ROMAN    PROVINCE    BETWEEN    THE     RHINE    AND     ELBE.  -  OVER- 
THROW  OF  VARUS  AND   LOSS   OF  THREE   LEGIONS,  763.  —  CONSTERNATION   AT 
ROME.  -  TIBERIUS   SENT   TO    THE    RHINE.—  OLD  AGE    OF  AUGUSTUS.  -  TIBERIUS 
RECEIVES   THE    PROCONSULAR   POWER,  AND  IS  VIRTUALLY  ASSOCIATED  IN  THE 
EMPIRE.  -  HIS   HOPES    OF   THE    SUCCESSION.  -  RUMOURED    RECONCILIATION    OF 
AUGUSTUS  WITH   AGRIPPA   POSTUMUS.  -  RECORD    OF   THE   ACTS   OF   AUGUSTUS. 

—  MONUMENTUM   ANCYRANUM.  —  LAST   DAYS  AND  DEATH   OF  AUGUSTUS.  —  CON- 

CLUSION (A.  D.  4-14,  A.  u.  757-767). 


reinstated  in  the  highest  consideration  to  which  a 
-L  citizen  could  attain  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  imperial 
power,  Tiberius  might  look  with  horror  on  the 
humiliation,  not  unmingled  with  personal  dan-  pectTcJ  5ibe- 
ger,  from  which  he  had  so  recently  emerged.  rinsatRhodes- 
He  had  experienced,  as  the  fruit  of  his  perverse  resentment, 
how  short  is  the  step  from  retirement  to  oblivion,  how  pre- 
carious the  condition  of  a  royal  exile,  how  nigh,  in  the  case 
of  the  most  exalted  fortunes,  disgrace  ever  borders  on  des- 
truction. As  the  conviction  was  gradually  forced  upon  him, 
that  his  moody  abandonment  of  his  duties  had  been  an  act 
of  fatal  impolicy,  he  had  become  disgusted  with  the  retreat 


234:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  4. 

which  he  had  chosen,  he  had  buried  himself  in  the  recesses 
of  his  narrow  prison-house,  had  thrown  aside  the  garb  of  a 
senator,  and  waived  the  -visits  of  the  officers  who  still  halted 
on  their  route  at  Rhodes,  or  turned  thither  out  of  their  way 
to  pay  court  to  the  emperor's  son-in-law.  From  year  to  year 
these  visits  of  compliment  and  policy  became  more  rare. 
The  displeasure  of  Augustus  was  more  generally  known,  and 
the  courtiers  took  their  cue  from  the  indications  he  gave  of 
his  sentiments.  Tiberius  was  made  aware  that  if  the  citizens 
still  spoke  of  him  at  all,  it  was  with  an  affectation  of  pity  or 
resentment.  One  of  the  Gaulish  states  actually  voted  that 
his  statue  in  their  forum  should  be  overthrown.  In  the  tent 
of  Caius  Ca?sar  officious  persons  were  found  to  speak  of  him 
contemptuously  as  the  exile,  and  even  offer  to  lay  his  head  at 
their  young  patron's  feet.1  This  tone  was  encouraged,  per- 
haps, by  the  arrogant  demeanour  of  the  prince  himself  in  the 
interview  they  had  had  at  Sanjos  ;  and  the  enmity  of  his  tutor 
Lollius  towards  Tiberius,  whatever  its  motive,  was  sufficiently 
notorious  among  the  legions.  Tiberius  meanwhile,  uneasy 
in  mind  and  dissatisfied  with  his  own  conduct,  yet  unable  to 
abate  the  emperor's  resentment,  fell  into  deep  despondency. 
Able  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  he  was  deficient  in  a  manly  reli- 
ance on  his  abilities,  and  under  discouragement  or  perplexity 
his  faint-heartedness  took  refuge  in  dreams  and  omens.  From 
his  childhood,  indeed,  like  many  a  scion  of  a  ruling  house, 
he  had  been  pampered  with  auguries  of  his  future  greatness, 
in  the  contemplation  of  which  his  native  strength  of  character 
may  have  been  partly  enervated.  He  now  devoted  himself 
still  more  eagerly  to  the  study  of  the  future,  in 

He  addicts  .  o       J  J 

himself  to          which  he  consulted  the  skill  of  the  astrologer 
Thrasyllus.    The  post  of  seer  in  the  household 
of  so  wayward  a  patron  must  have  been  one  of  peculiar  diffi- 
culty, nor  was  it  devoid  of  danger.     Its  occupant  was  the 
unwilling  depositary  of  many  perilous  secrets.     He  was  em- 
ployed to  cast  the  horoscope,  not  of  his  master  only,  but  of 
his  master's  enemies  or  rivals, — of  the  young  Cassars,  Caius 
1  Suet  Tib.  13. 


A.U.  757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  235 

and  Lucius,  possibly  of  Augustus  himself.  He  was  made  the 
reluctant  accomplice  of  investigations  which  either  were 
already  treasonable,  or  might  hereafter  become  so.  Among 
the  horrid  stories  regarding  the  recluse  of  Rhodes,  which 
were  now  noised  abroad  to  the  dismay  of  the  citizens,  it  was 
said  that  he  kept  an  attendant  of  Herculean  strength,  to  hurl 
into  the  waves  beneath  his  villa  the  wretches  whom  he  had 
thus  possessed  of  his  secret  thoughts  and  practices.  Among 
these  none  was  so  eminent  as  Thrasyllus,  and  accordingly 
the  position  of  none  was  so  perilous.  The  astrologer  saved 
himself  by  an  ingenious  device.  Undoubtedly  it  required  no 
occult  science  to  divine  the  cruel  intentions  of  so  jealous  a 
patron,  nor  in  his  moody  humours  to  read  the  thoughts  which 
occupied  him.  One  day  Thrasyllus  was  observed  to  betray 
sudden  perturbation  and  terror.  When  Tiberius  inquired  the 
cause,  he  declared  that  his  art  had  just  revealed  to  him  that  he 
was  at  that  moment  in  imminent  peril.  Tiberius,  conscious 
that  he  had  just  been  meditating  his  companion's  destruction, 
was  struck  with  this  proof  of  his  skill  in  divination,  embraced 
him  with  transports  of  delight,  and  gave  him  increasing  marks 
of  his  confidence.  When  his  own  turn  came  to  watch  anx- 
iously from  the  cliffs  the  arrival  of  a  messenger  from  Rome, 
Avhom  he  expected  to  bring  his  own  death-warrant,  Thrasyllus, 
on  descrying  the  vessel,  declared  that,  on  the  contrary,  he 
was  the  bearer  of  good  tidings.  The  conjecture  was  again 
fortunate.  Tiberius  was  suddenly  summoned  from  his  exile 
to  the  favour  of  Augustus,  and  even  to  the  prospect  of 
empire.1 

Conscious  of  his  error  in  pretending  for  once  to  act  with 
independence,  Tiberius  now  sought  to  retrieve  it  by  entire 
submission  to  his  chief's  wishes.  At  Rhodes  he  had  entreated 
that  an  officer  might  be  appointed  to  watch  him,  and  report 

1  These  stories  are  referred  to  by  Suetonius,  Tib.  14.,  and  Dion,  Iv.  11. 
They  are  gravely  attested  also  by  Tacitus,  Ann.  vi.  20,  21.  The  appearance 
of  an  eagle,  a  bird  which  was  never  known  to  visit  Rhodes,  was  hailed  as  a 
favourable  omen.  The  occurrence  is  ingeniously  handled  in  an  epigram  of 
Apollonidas,  Anthol.  Grcec.  ii.  135.,  ed.  Brunck. 


236  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

all  his  words  and  actions.  On  his  return,  under  the  condition 
imposed  by  Caius  that  he  should  abstain  from 
public  affairs,  he  renounced  the  mansion  of  Pom- 
frombaif 'public  peius,  which  he  had  formerly  occupied  in  the  fre- 
quented quarter  of  the  Carinae,  and  courted  seclu- 
sion in  the  more  distant  gardens  of  Maecenas.1  His  only  pub- 
lic act  was  to  introduce  his  son  Drusus,  on  coming  of  age,  to 
the  citizens  in  the  forum ;  he  surrendered  himself  to  complete 
retirement,  associated  with  the  poets  and  grammarians,  stud- 
ied sentimental  and  erotic  versifiers,  and  employed  himself  in 
composing  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  Lucius  Caesar."  But 
when  the  demise  of  the  surviving  brother  opened  to  him 
again  a  public  career,  and  he  was  to  believe  that  the  republic 
demanded  his  assistance,  his  long-restrained  activity  quickly 
revived.  He  accepted  a  mission  to  the  German  frontier, 
along  which  a  general  war  of  attack  and  defence  on  either 
side  had  been  raging  for  three  years.3  Since  the  last  cam- 
paign he  had  conducted  in  this  quarter,  the  Romans  had 
acquired  substantial  advantages  beyond  the  Rhine.  The 
command  of  the  legions  had  devolved  upon 

Expeditions  of    -^        ...  %    ,,         A 

Domitiusin  Domitius,  the  son  of  the  Antoman  renegade, 
a  man  of  energy  and  boldness,  who  had  plunged 
into  the  heart  of  Germany,  crossed  the  Elbe,  and  planted  on 
its  further  bank  an  altar  to  Augustus,  as  a  pledge  of  the 
amicable  relations  he  had  succeeded  for  a  moment  in  establish- 

1  Suet.  Tib.  16. :  "  Rornam  reversus  statim  e  Carinis  et  Pompeiana  domo 
Esquilias  in  hortos  Maecenatis  transmigrant."  This  fact  deserves  to  be  noticed 
as  a  trait  of  manners.  The  life  of  public  men  in  Rome  was  so  thoroughly 
public,  their  doors  standing  open  from  the  earliest  hour  for  the  throng  of 
clients  and  attendants,  that  the  removal  of  a  few  hundred  paces  from  the  cen- 
tre of  social  movement  was  not  without  political  significance.  The  dwellings 
of  the  great  men  of  the  republic  had  always  been  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
the  Forum.  It  was  part  of  Majcenas's  modest  policy  to  make  choice  of  a  sub- 
urban locality. 

1  Suet.  Tib.  70:  "  Composuit  et  lyricum  carmen  cujus  est  titulus :  conques- 
tio  de  L.  Caesaris  morte."  For  his  taste  in  poetry,  and  his  admiration  of  the 
Greek  writers  of  the  class  of  Parthenius  and  Rhianor,  see  the  same  author,  /.  e. 

3  Veil.  ii.  104. :  "  Bcllum  quibusdam  in  locis  gestum,  quibusdam  susten- 
tatum  feliciter." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  237 

ing  with  the  natives.1  By  the  construction  of  a  road  across 
the  heaths  and  morasses  of  the  Lippe  valley,  he  had  connect- 
ed the  frontiers  of  Gaul  with  the  outposts  of  the  empire  on 
the  Weser.  He  had  also  transplanted  the  Hennunduri  into 
the  vacant  seats  of  the  Marcomanni,  who  had  quitted  their 
old  habitations  about  the  sources  of  the  Danube,  for  a  domi- 
cile in  the  remoter  region  of  Bohemia.  It  seems,  however, 
that  Domitius  had  been  unsuccessful  in  his  demand  on  the 
Cherusci,  to  receive  back  some  exiles  of  their  nation ;  and  in 
quitting  the  province  without  chastising  this  affront,  he  had 
perhaps  subjected  the  Roman  authority  to  contempt.  Vini- 
cius,  who  succeeded  to  his  command,  found  him-  andofVini- 
self  involved  in  a  formidable  war,  for  the  con-  cms 
duct  of  which  he  was  rewarded  with  the  triumphal  orna- 
ments ;  but  had  he  performed  any  considerable  exploit  it  is 
not  likely  that  a  favourable  historian,  such  as  Velleius  Pater- 
culus,  would  have  failed  to  specify  it." 

Tiberius  quitted  Rome  for  the  frontiers  in  the  summer  of 
757,  and  entered  at  once  on  the  work  before  him.   The  events 
of  this  invasion  are  not  known  to  us;  but  the  Tiberius  in 
powerful  force  he   commanded  seems  to  have  ^"^"l; 
speedily  quelled  resistance,  and  the  only  record      *•  u- 757- 
of  his  exploit  remains  in  the  names  of  the  tribes  which  are 
said  to  have  now  submitted  to  him,  the  Bructeri,  the  Canine- 
fates,  the  Attuarii,  and  Cherusci,  lying  between  the  lower 
Rhine  and  the  Weser,  a  district  which  the  Roman  arms  had 
already  penetrated  in  every  direction.    His  operations  were 
prolonged,  perhaps,  by  the  means  he  took  to  secure  conquests 
so  often  partially  effected,  until  the  middle  of  December,  some 
months  beyond  the  usual  military  season  in  that  severe  cli- 


1  Tac.  Ann.  iv.  44. :  "  Domitius  flumen  Albim  exercitu  transcendit,  longius 
penetrata  Germania  quam  qnisquam  priorum."  Velleius,  it  will  be  seen,  as- 
signs this  honour  to  his  hero  Tiberius. 

3  Dion,  IT.  10. ;  Veil.  /.  c.  M.  Vinicius  was  the  grandfather  of  the  friend 
to  whom  Velleius  addresses  his  work.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  he 
seems  systematically  to  depreciate  the  predecessors  of  Tiberius  in  the  German 
command. 


238  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  5. 

mate ;  and  when  he  left  the  army  to  revisit  Rome,  he  fixed 
its  winter  quarters  at  the  sources  of  the  Lippe,  on  the  confines 
of  the  forest  of  Teutobiirg.1  From  this  point  he  meditated 
a  deliberate  advance  in  the  ensuing  year,  and  his  object  in 
now  recrossing  the  Alps  may  have  been  to  extort  from  the 
growing  timidity  and  reluctance  of  Augustus  permission  and 
means  for  an  enterprise  on  a  grander  scale.  Returning  ac- 
cordingly to  his  legions  early  in  the  spring  of  758,  he  organ- 
A.  D.  5.  ise<^  a  combined  expedition  by  land  and  sea,  by 
A.  u.  758.  which  the  wants  of  the  invading  army  might  be 
supplied,  and  its  baggage  and  machines  of  war  transported 
by  water  into  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  country.  Reserving 
for  himself  in  person  the  conduct  of  the  main  body  of  his 
forces  in  light  array  across  the  wilderness,  he  directed  a  numer- 
ous flotilla,  long  since  prepared  on  the  Rhine,  to  follow  in  the 
course  explored  by  Drusus,  along  the  shores  of  the  Northern 
Ocean ;  to  penetrate  to  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe,  and  ascend 
its  yet  unknown  waters,  till  the  armaments  should  meet 
together  in  an  appointed  latitude.4  This  remarkable  com- 
bination was  actually  earned  into  execution  according  to  the 
directions  prescribed ;  and  the  praises  lavished  upon  it  by 
Yelleius,  who  shared  himself  in  its  hazards,  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  too  warm  for  so  memorable  an  achievement,  the 
most  remarkable  for  the  success  of  its  far-sighted  arrange- 
ments of  any  recorded  in  ancient  military  history.  It  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  we  should  know  so  little  of  its 

1  Veil.  ii.  105. :  "  In  mediis  (Germanise)  finibus  ad  caput  Luppiae  flumiuis :  " 
advanced,  therefore,  considerably  to  the  east  of  Aliso. 

1  Veil.  ii.  106.  This  remarkable  statement  deserves  to  be  given  in  full : 
"  Denique  quod  nunquam  antea  epe  conceptum,  nedum  opere  tentatum  erat, 
ad  quadringentesimum  milliarium  a  Rheno  usque  ad  flumen,  Albim,  qui  Sem- 
nonum  Hermundurorumque  fines  praeterfluit,  Romanus  cum  signis  perductus 
est  exercitus ;  et  eodem  mira  felicitate  et  cura  ducis,  temporum  quoque  obser- 
vantia,  classis  quaj  oceani  circumnavigaverat  sinus,  ab  inaudito  atque  incognito 
ante  mari  flumine  Albi  subvecta,  plurimarum  gentium  victoria,  cum  abundan- 
tissima  rerum  omnium  copia,  exercitui  Csesarique  se  junxit."  The  point  of 
junction  is  left  quite  indeterminate.  It  seems  hardly  credible  that  the  Roman 
flotilla  can  have  ascended  the  stream  to  the  latitude  of  the  Lippe,  or  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Elbe  and  Saale. 


A.U.  758.]  [JNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  239 

details,  which,  if  fully  presented,  would  give  us  ample  insight 
into  the  resources  of  the  Roman  power.1  We  only  know 
that  the  advance  of  Tiberius  had  been  triumphant,  and  per- 
haps unresisted.  In  the  lack  of  victories  to  celebrate,  his 
encomiast  vaunts  the  merit,  unusual  in  a  Roman  general,  of 
sparing  the  lives  of  his  soldiers,  and  exposing  himself  to  no 
unnecessary  risk.2  But  to  Velleius  the  future  emperor  was  a 
demigod,  and  his  deeds  divine  ;3  and  he  records  with  enthu- 
siasm the  veneration  with  which  the  barbarians  regarded 
him/  While  the  army  was  encamped  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Elbe,  and  the  natives,  retreating  before  them,  were  col- 
lected in  force  on  the  other,  an  aged  chief  put  off  from  the 
further  side  in  a  canoe,  and  from  the  middle  of  the  stream 
addressed  the  strangers,  demanding  leave  to  cross  in  safety, 
and  behold  the  person  of  their  leader.  Conducted  to  the 
tent  of  the  imperator,  he  surveyed  him  for  a  time  with  silent 
admiration,  and  exclaimed,  What  madness  is  this  of  ours,  to 
contend  against  the  unseen  divinities,  and  not  humbly  to  seek 
their  presence  and  make  submission  to  their  benign  authority  ! 
JBut  I,  by  the  grace  of  Ccesar,  have  this  day  seen  a  god,  a 
privilege  I  never  before  attained  nor  hoped  to  attain.  Thus 
saying,  he  sought  permission  to  touch  the  hand  of  the  divini- 
ty ;  and  as  he  paddled  back  across  the  stream  still  turned  his 
face  towards  the  Roman  bank,  with  his  eyes  fixed  constantly 
upon  him.5  It  is  obvious  to  remark,  that  if  the  story  be  true, 

1  The  battering  train  of  a  Roman  army  was  generally  little  less  cumbrous 
than  modern  artillery :  but  in  moving  through  a  country  where  there  were  no 
stone  fortifications,  it  is  probable  that  this  was  in  a  great  degree  dispensed  with. 
Nevertheless  the  provision  for  the  conveyance  of  the  men's  baggage  must  have 
been  on  an  immense  scale,  even  in  their  lightest  array. 

2  Veil.  1.  c. :  "  Sine  ullo  detrimento  commissi  exercitus." 

3  Veil.  ii.  94 :  "  Caelestissimorum  ejus  operum  per  annos  continues  novem, 
prsefectus  aut  legatus,  spectator,  pro  captu  mediocritatis  mese  adjutor  fui." 

4  There  is  something  far  more  natural,  and  not  less  interesting,  in  the  his- 
torian's account  of  the  joy  with  which  the  veterans  hailed  their  old  leader's  re- 
turn to  military  life.  (ii.  103.)     "  Vidcmus  te,  imperator?  salvum  recepimus? 
ac  deinde,  ego  tecum,  imperator,  in  Armenia,  ego  in  Rhxtia  fui ;  ego  a  te  in 
Vindelicis,  ego  in  Pannonia,  ego  in  Germania  donatus  sum ! " 

6  Veil.  ii.  107.     Compare  an  epigram  of  Martial,  v.  3. 


24:0  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  4. 

» 

the  scene  miglit  have  easily  been  arranged,  by  the  prince's 
flatterers,  to  confirm  the  allegiance  of  the  native  chiefs  at- 
tending in  his  camp.  But  the  children  of  the  German  forests 
were  fully  prepared  to  accept  the  divine  character  of  the 
great  and  powerful  among  men,  and  the  altar  recently  erected 
on  their  soil  had  already  attracted  votaries  among  them. 
This  expedition,  however  remarkable  in  its  circumstances, 
had  no  more  important  results  than  those  which  preceded  it. 
Once  only  had  the  Germans  ventured  to  measure  their  strength 
with  the  advancing  legions,  when  they  paid  for  their  rashness 
by  a  signal  discomfiture :  nevertheless  the  Romans,  on  reti- 
ring in  the  autumn,  had  left  behind  them  no  permanent  im- 
pression of  their  successes. 

These  repeated  advances,  however,  with  the  speedy  retreat 

and  proffered  submission  of  the  natives,  though   far   from 

having  the   character  of    conquests,   could  not 

The  influence         ,  ,  .,     .  , 

of  Rome  ex-      altogether    tail  in    extending    the  influence   of 

tended  by  these   T>  ,r  r  ,.  f  -, 

repeated  inva-  Kome  throughout  a  great  portion  of  central 
Europe.  They  inspired  a  strong  sense  of  her 
invincibility,  and  of  her  conquering  destiny ;  at  the  same 
time  they  exalted  the  respect  of  the  barbarians  for  the  south- 
ern civilization,  which  could  marshal  such  irresistible  forces 
at  so  vast  a  distance  from  the  sources  of  its  power.  Accord- 
ingly the  young  chiefs  of  the  Rhine  and  Elbeland  crowded 
to  Rome,  to  learn  her  lessons  of  government  on  the  spot ; 
while  many  of  their  followers  and  dependants  settled  within 
her  walls.  The  views  of  Tiberius  extended  to  the  complete 
subjugation  of  the  whole  country  before  him ;  but  he  had  not 
the  military  ardour  of  the  conqueror  of  the  Gauls,  nor  was  he 
pressed  for  time  like  the  rival  of  Pompeius  :  he  could  afford 
to  wait  upon  events,  and  leave  the  consummation  of  his  policy 
to  be  developed  hereafter.  Meanwhile,  the  position  to  which 
he  had  been  elevated  rendered  him  almost  independent  of  the 
scruples  of  Augustus,  whose  discreet  and  dilatory  system  he 
was  able,  when  he  chose,  to  overrule.  This  hesitation,  in- 
deed, on  the  emperor's  part  was  not  inadequately  justified  by 
the  circumstances  of  the  time.  Augustus  perceived  but  too 


A.U.757.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  241 

clearly  the  goal  to  which  affairs  were  tending,  the  Au  ugtug  heg. 
unchecked  preponderance  of  the  military  power.  t:ites  in  *he  , 

*•     f  .  J    r  prosecution  of 

The  mercenaries  now  enlisted  under  the  Roman  l£e  conquest  of 
eagles  began  to  clamour  for  increased  pay  and 
privileges,  and  to  remonstrate  against  the  protracted  servitude 
to  which  they  were  condemned  by  the  reluctance  of  the  citi- 
zens to  embrace  the  profession  of  arms.  The  nobles  and  men 
of  fortune,  the  strength  of  the  ancient  legions,  were  fully  em- 
ployed, by  the  cautious  but  self-defeating  policy  of  the  em- 
peror, in  the  civil  business  of  the  state ;  while  the  populace, 
from  whom  Marius  and  Ca3sar  had  not  disdained  to  recruit, 
were  contented  with  the  dole  of  public  corn,  and  refused  to 
earn  their  bread  under  the  austere  discipline  of  the  camp. 
Augustus,  when  he  looked  around  him,  might  perceive  that 
this  was  but  one  of  many  symptoms  of  the  decline  of  national 
spirit,  and  the  failure  of  his  elaborate  scheme  for  reconstruct- 
ing the  nation.  To  many  it  might  seem  a  trifling  matter, 
that  he  was  now  obliged,  for  want  of  legitimate  candidates 
for  the  Vestal  priesthood,  to  admit  the  daughters  of  freed- 
men  to  that  dignity ;  nevertheless  it  betrayed,  but  too  plainly, 
to  the  clear  view  of  the  imperial  reformer,  the  loss  of  an  ele- 
ment of  power  in  the  decay  of  a  venerable  tradition.1  At 
such  a  moment  the  acquisition  of  a  new  province  with  its 
burdens  and  obligations  was  hardly  a  matter  of  felicitation  ; 
but  the  Jews  had  complained  so  loudly  of  the  tyranny  of  Ar- 
chelaus,  that  Augustus  was  induced  to  summon  him  to  Rome, 
and  thence  relegate  him  to  Vienna  in  Gaul,  while  he  satisfied 
the  demands  of  his  people  by  annexing  his  dominions  to  the 
empire.4  It  was  now  necessary  to  keep  a  regular  force  stationed 
in  the  strong  places  of  Judea ;  but  even  the  means  of  pay- 
ing the  soldiery  at  home  had  become  a  question  of  difficulty. 
Augustus  largely  contributed  to  the  public  service  from  his 
private  resources;  he  encouraged  his  allies  also  to  bestow 

1  Dion,  Iv.  22. 

4  Joseph.  Antiq.  xvii.  13.  2.,  xviii.  2.  1.      Judea  was  made  a  province  in 
the  last  half  of  the  year  759 ;  in  the  tenth  year  of  Archelaus's  government. 
Dion,  Iv.  27. ;  Bell.  Jvd.  ii.  7.  3. 
VOL.  iv. — 16 


242  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

their  liberality  in  the  same  manner ;  yet  he  refrained  from 
soliciting,  nor  would  he  even  accept,  the  subscriptions  of 
individual  citizens.  He  was  glad  perhaps  to  profit  by  a  tran- 
sient necessity  for  the  imposition  of  a  permanent  charge  OD 
the  Roman  people,  who,  since  they  had  been  relieved  from 
the  land-tax,  were  jealous  of  any  encroachment  on  their  cher- 
ished immunity.  While  he  decreed  the  levy  of  one  twentieth 
upon  the  succession  to  property,  he  invited  the  senators  to 
recommend  any  other  tax  they  deemed  more  eligible ;  well 
assured  that  while  many  of  them  would  be  eager  to  submit 
to  his  own  view,  those  who  ventured  to  dissent  from  it  would 
neutralize  their  opposition  by  the  conflict  of  opinions  among 
themselves.1 

To  return,  however,  to  the  northern  frontiers,  to  which 

our  eyes  have  been  so  frequently  directed,  we  may  observe 

that,  within  a  very  recent  period,  a  remarkable 

Movements  of  .  J  ,r 

the  Marcoman-  revolution  had  taken  place  in  the  interior  of  Ger- 
many, which  must  be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of 
a  single  chief.  The  designation  of  Marcomanni  had  been 
given  by  the  western  tribes  to  a  Suevic  clan,  settled,  as 
their  name  imports,  on  the  march  or  border  of  the  German 
territory.8  They  formed  the  advanced  guard  of  the  nation 
in  its  struggles  to  extend  westward,  and  to  penetrate  through 
the  denies  of  Helvetia  into  the  pastures  of  Gaul.  But  the 
restoration  of  the  Helvetii  by  Caesar,  and  the  subsequent  in- 
trusion of  Gaulish  and  Roman  settlers  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Rhine,  seem  to  have  harassed  the  Marcomanni,  and  made 
them  dissatisfied  with  possessions  which  they  could  not  main- 

1  Dion,  lv.  25. 

a  This  is  one  of  the  earliest  and  clearest  indications  of  the  radical  identity 
of  the  German  language  of  the  first  and  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Marco- 
manni are  evidently  the  men  of  the  marca  or  limes,  the  line  which  divides  one 
territory  from  another.  Zeuss,  die  Deutscken,  &c.,  p.  114.  Another  deriva- 
tion assigned,  is  from  markir,  a  wood  But  this  word  is  itself  derived  from 
marca.  Zeuss  refers  to  Grimm,  Rechtsalterthiim.  p.  497.  Some  writers  Ger- 
manize Maroboduus  into  Marbod.  But  the  meaning  of  this  word  is  not  obvious, 
and  here  and  elsewhere  I  have  generally  preferred  the  Latin  as  the  only  au- 
thorized form. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  243 

tain  inviolate.  They  were  induced  by  the  authority  of  their 
chief  Maroboduus,  or  Marbod,  to  remove  in  a  body  eastward : 
crossing  the  Mons  Gabreta  or  Erzgebirge,  they  poured  into 
the  district  of  Boiohemum,  the  homes  of  the  Boil,  and  estab- 
lished themselves  in  the  broad,  lozenge-shaped  valley  of  the 
Moldau  and  Upper  Elbe.  Within  this  territory,  entrenched  in 
a  circumvallation  of  mountains,  and  doubly  defended  by  rocks 
and  forests,  the  great  South-German  empire  was  rapidly  reared 
under  the  sway  of  its  spirited  chieftain,  who  had  The  kingdom 
profited  by  the  lessons  he  had  learned  in  an  £  S^n™8' 
early  residence  at  Rome.1  Flanked  by  the  Na-  Germany- 
risci  on  one  side  and  the  Quadi  on  the  other,  the  Marcomanni 
and  their  allies  confronted,  along  the  whole  line  of  the  Upper 
Danube,  the  garrisons  of  Noricum  and  Vindelicia.  Marobo- 
duus maintained  a  regular  force  of  seventy  thousand  foot  and 
four  thousand  horse,  armed  and  disciplined  after  the  Roman 
model ;  and  these  troops,  while  still  unmolested  by  the  south- 
ern invaders,  he  had  exercised  in  reducing  his  German  neigh- 
bours, and  consolidating  his  wide  possessions.  If  at  an  earlier 
period  the  Marcomanni  had  retired  before  the  aggressions  of 
the  Roman  power,  they  now  no  longer  pretended  to  fear  it : 
the  provincials  who  fled  from  the  tyranny  of  the  proconsuls 
found  an  hospitable  reception  beyond  the  Danube ;  while  in 
the  discussions  which  ensued,  the  envoys  of  Maroboduus  were 
instructed  to  alternate  a  tone  of  deference  towards  their  for- 
midable rivals,  with  the  boldest  assertions  of  equality  and 
independence.5 

The  German  nations  placed  themselves  for  the  most  part 
under  the  lead  of  a  single  chieftain,  whom  the  Romans  were 
accustomed  to  describe  by  the  general  designa- 
tion  of  king.  But  the  power  of  this  chief  was 
limited  on  all  sides  by  prescriptive  usage,  and 
the  authority  of  force  and  numbers.  A  political  education 

1  Veil.  ii.  108. :  "  Maroboduus certum  imperium  vimque  regiam 

complexus  anirao." 

*  Veil.  ii.  109. :  "Legati  quos  mittebat  ad  Csesares  interdum  ut  supplicem 
commendabant,  interdum  ut  pro  pari  loquebantur." 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  6. 

at  the  capital  of  the  empire  was  ill-suited  to  the  heir  of  such 
a  sovereignty  as  this.  No  sooner  had  Maroboduus  returned 
to  his  own  country,  than  he  aspired  to  a  loftier  eminence 
above  the  jealous  control  of  his  armed  peers.  The  crisis  in 
the  fortunes  of  his  nation  furnished  an  opportunity  for  secur- 
ing the  object  of  his  ambition,  and  he  seems  to  have  acquired 
a  much  more  absolute  sway  than  his  people  had  before  ad- 
mitted. This  was  the  circumstance  which  made  him  pecu- 
liarly formidable  to  the  Romans.  The  imperators  on  the 
frontiers  had  hitherto  profited  far  more  by  the  divisions  of 
their  enemies,  than  by  the  vigour  of  their  own  arms.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  they  beheld  for  the  first  time  a  nation  of 
warriors  arrayed  under  the  control  of  a  single  hand,  they 
felt  deprived  of  their  wonted  advantage,  and  reduced  to 
contend  on  equal  terms  with  an  opponent  whose  strength 
and  courage  might  compensate  for  inferior  discipline.  Hence 
it  was  that  they  compared  the  king  of  the  Marcomanni  to 
Pyrrhus  and  Antiochus,  and  declared  that  he  was  not  less 
dangerous  to  their  own  empire  than  the  Macedonian  Philip 
had  proved  to  Athens.1  They  added  that  the  frontiers  of  his 
kingdom  and  dependencies  extended  to  within  two  hundred 
miles  of  Italy :  it  was  more  important  to  observe  that  the 
interval  was  occupied  by  half-conquered  foreigners,  ready  to 
hail  with  acclamations  the  advance  of  a  German  deliverer. 
But  the  despotism  of  Maroboduus  was  in  fact  a  source  of 
weakness  rather  than  of  strength ;  for  it  tended  to  separate 
his  interests  from  those  of  the  brave  warriors  of  the  north, 
and  divided  into  two  jealous  camps  the  great  Teutonic  na- 
tion. 

At  the  commencement  of  759,  Tiberius  had  exchanged  his 
post  on  the  Rhine  for  the  command  of  the  legions  on  the  sister- 
Campaign  of  stream  of  the  Danube.  Preparations  had  been 
££f,£une  made  for  a  grand  attack  on  the  Marcomanni, 
Marcomanni.  wnOse  insolence,  as  the  Romans  designated  it, 
A.u.759.  haa  afforded  sufficient  pretext  for  a  declaration 

1  Tacitus  (Ann.  ii.  62.)  puts  this  declaration,  at  a  later  period,  into  the 
mouth  of  Tiberius. 


A.U.  759.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  245 

of  war.  The  chief  station  of  the  Romans  in  this  quarter  was 
at  Carnuntum,  the  gate  of  western  Europe,  where  her  great- 
est river  issues  from  the  hills  of  the  Celt  and  Teuton  into  the 
plains  of  the  Scythian  and  Sannatian.  At  this  important 
post,  which  served  to  overawe  both  Noricum  and  Pannonia, 
a  force,  which  may  be  estimated  at  six  legions,  was  collect- 
ed for  the  projected  invasion.  Tiberius,  placing  himself  at 
their  head,  proceeded  to  lead  them  westward,  in  order  to 
meet  an  army  of  not  inferior  strength  which  Saturninus  was 
bringing  from  the  Rhine,  cutting  his  way  with  spade  and  axe 
through  the  heart  of  the  Hercynian  forest.  The  boldness  of 
this  movement  must  be  allowed  for  an  instant  to  arrest  our 
attention.  There  was  not,  indeed,  much  apprehension  of  any 
armed  opposition  being  made  to  it.  The  Suevic  tribes, 
through  whose  territories  it  would  be  directed,  had  for  the 
most  part  abandoned  their  homes ;  and  a  large  portion  of 
the  track  it  followed  lay  within  the  undisputed  domain  of 
the  wilderness.  But  when  we  consider  how  ignorant  the 
Romans  were  of  these  savage  regions,  the  rudeness  of  their 
methods  of  exploration  by  sea  or  land,  and  the  gloom  of  the 
pathless  forest  which  they  had  to  traverse  without  even  the 
compass  for  their  guide,  we  must  confess  that  the  forethought 
and  methodical  arrangement  which  could  insure  the  meeting 
of  two  armies  from  such  distant  points  at  an  appointed  spot, 
was  not  less  admirable  than  the  just  self-confidence  which 
ventured  to  rely  on  them.  It  is  not  quite  clear,  from  the 
meagre  account  of  our  historian,  whether  this  spot  was  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Danube  or  the  left.  The  latter  seems, 
however,  the  more  probable.  Tiberius  crossed  the  river  at 
Carnuntum,  and  struck  in  a  north-westerly  direction  towards 
the  frontiers  of  Bohemia.  He  had  arrived  within  five  marches 
of  the  enemy's  border ;  and  Saturninus  was  at  the  same  mo- 
ment at  no  greater  distance  from  it  on  the  opposite  side. 
Whatever  might  have  been  the  further  result  of  He  IB  recalled 
the  arduous  campaign  in  prospect,  this  combi-  ^n^p8^!60" 
nation,  which  for  its  magnitude  and  precision  nonia- 
deserves  to  be  compared  with  that  which  we  have  recently 


246  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  6. 

admired,  had,  in  fact,  virtually  succeeded,  when  Tiberius  was 
disconcerted  by  the  report  of  an  insurrection  in  Pannonia. 
The  provincial  garrisons  had  been  drafted  from  their  camps, 
and  the  natives,  who  had  groaned  under  the  exactions  of  the 
Roman  administration,  finding  themselves  relieved  from  the 
accustomed  pressure  of  military  force,  sprang  with  vehemence 
to  arms.  With  his  prey  almost  in  his  clutches,  and  a  victory 
in  prospect  more  magnificent  than  any  since  those  of  Aquas 
SextiaB  and  VercellaB,  Tiberius  was  too  discreet  to  hazard  for 
his  own  glory  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  empire.  He  offered 
terms  to  Maroboduus,  who,  with  less  discretion,  was  eager  to 
accept  them.  The  Roman  armies  were  ordered  to  retreat 
simultaneously,  and  they  regained  their  provinces  at  least 
without  dishonour.1 

The  nations  through  which  the  flame  of  rebellion  had 
spread  counted,  according  to  a  loose  calculation,  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  souls  ;  the  warriors  in  arms,  whose 

General  out-  .  . 

break  of  the  force  might  be  more  accurately  estimated,  were 
Dalmatians'  computed  at  two  hundred  thousand  infantry  and 
eight  thousand  horse."  Their  numbers,  however, 
were  not  so  formidable  as  the  union  they  maintained  among 
themselves,  and  the  concert  which  might  be  apprehended 
between  them  and  the  various  tribes  from  the  Adriatic  to  the 
Euxine.  The  immediate  cause  of  this  revolt  was  the  raising 
of  levies  by  Messalinus,  the  imperial  legate,  for  enlistment  in 
the  army  of  the  Danube.  But  the  warriors  of  the  northern 
provinces  were  not  generally  averse  to  the  risks  and  glories 
of  Roman  service,  and  it  was  rather  the  tyranny  of  the 
government  which  always  pressed  most  harshly  on  the  sub- 
jects whose  loyalty  was  least  assured,  that  drove  them  to  the 

1  Dion,  Iv.  28. ;  Veil.  ii.  112. :  "  Turn  necessaria  gloriosis  praeposita,  neque 
tntum  visum,  abdito  in  interiora  exercitu,  vacuam  tarn  vicino  hosti  Italiam  re- 
linquere."  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  46. :  "  Conditionibus  aequis  discessum." 

5  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  nearly  the  same  proportion  of  fighting 
men  to  a  whole  population  as  that  which  was  recorded  among  the  Helvetians. 
These  provinces  had  been  for  several  years  under  the  Roman  dominion,  and 
the  population  may  have  been  numbered  for  purposes  of  administration.  In 
such  a  case  the  slaves  were  probably  omitted  from  the  account. 


A.U.T59.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

desperate  resource  of  insurrection.  The  Dalmatians  and  Uly- 
rians,  the  nearest  to  Italy,  whose  long  resistance,  though 
productive  of  few  great  men  or  great  events,  was  deemed 
worthy  of  detailed  recital  by  the  historiographer  of  the  ene- 
mies of  Rome,  were  led  by  chiefs  whose  names,  Bato  and 
Pinnes,  have  been  preserved  to  us.1  They  attacked  and  over- 
powered some  cohorts  stationed  in  their  own  country,  then 
turned  southward,  assaulted  Salona  on  the  Adriatic  without 
success,  and  marched  southward  as  far  as  Apollonia,  to  check 
perhaps  the  advance  of  reinforcements  from  Greece.  At  the 
same  time  a  Pannonian  chief,  named  also  Gato,  attempted  to 
carry  the  strong  post  of  Sirmium ;  and  though  he  was  re- 
pulsed and  defeated  by  Caecina  on  the  Drave,  the  loss  of  the 
Romans  was  such  as  almost  to  convert  his  defeat  into  a  vic- 
tory. The  readiness  with  which  the  Pannonians  had  learnt, 
not  only  the  habits  and  language,  but  the  tactics  of  their  con- 
querors, made  them  peculiarly  formidable.  No  nation,  it  was 
affirmed,  that  had  ever  opposed  the  Romans,  had  so  well 
weighed  its  resources,  or  seized  more  warily  the  moment  for 
exerting  them.  The  rout  of  the  local  garrisons,  the  extermi- 
nation of  the  Roman  colonists,  the  abortive  attack  upon  Sir- 
mium, were  only  preludes  to  an  organized  and  general  com- 
bination against  the  foreign  intruders.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
Dacians  and  Sarmatians  were  encouraged  to  attack  the  ex- 
treme right  of  the  Roman  line  on  the  Danube  ;  on  the  other, 
preparations  were  made  for  penetrating  into  Italy  itself  by 
the  route  of  Nauportus  and  Tergeste.2 

The  accessibility  of  Italy  upon  this  side,  where  her  moun- 

1  Dion,  Iv.  29.    Besides  the  "  Civil  Wars "  of  Rome,  Appian  wrote  the 
"  Affairs,"  that  is,  the  "  contests  with  the  republic"  of  the  Illyrians,  the  Mace- 
donians, and  the  Carthaginians. 

2  Veil.  ii.  110. :  "  Pars  petere  Italiam  decreverat,  junctam  sibi  Nauporttet 
Tergestis  confinio."     Nauportus  is  evidently  from  its  name  the  station  of  a  flo- 
tilla, such  as  the  Romans  maintained  on  some  of  their  great  frontier  rivers. 
It  must  have  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Save,  near  ^Emona,  the  modern  Lay- 
bach.     D'Anville  supposes  it  to  be  Ober-Laybach,  on  the  eastern  declivity  of 
the  Carnian  Alps.      The  ancient  as  well  as  the  modern  road  from  Italy  lay 
through  these  places. 


248  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  6. 

tain  barrier  sinks  most  nearly  to  the  level  of  the  plains,  was 
Consternation  at  all  times  a  matter  of  anxiety  to  her  rulers. 
Aism^ofAu-  Augustus,  shaken  by  years  and  dispirited  by 
gustus.  family  losses,  forgot  that  the  rear  of  the  enemy 

was  pressed  by  the  armaments  of  Tiberius,  and  exclaimed, 
with  petulant  vexation,  that  ten  days  might  bring  them  to 
the  gates  of  Rome.  The  consternation  became  general.  In 
earlier  times  the  republic  had  disdained  to  maintain  a  defen- 
sive force  before  the  walls  of  the  capital.  Every  citizen  in 
those  days  was  a  soldier,  every  father  of  a  family  was  a  vete- 
ran of  many  campaigns.  Rome  could  never  be  taken  by  sur- 
prise. But  the  vast  change  in  her  social  circumstances  had 
produced  no  alteration  in  her  material  defences.  Italy  was 
allowed  to  remain  denuded  of  regular  troops,  and  her  children 
shrank  from  a  service  to  which  they  were  unaccustomed  and 
averse.  It  required  a  strong  appeal  to  their  fears  to  support 
the  vigorous  measures  which  seemed  requisite  for  their  safety. 
The  veterans  were  summoned  from  their  estates ;  the  heads 
of  every  household,  male  or  female,  were  required  to  furnish 
a  contingent  of  freedmen  for  military  service ;  senators  and 
knights  were  bid  to  unbar  the  doors  of  their  factories,  and 
pour  forth  their  slaves,  whom  the  state  enfranchised  before 
putting  arms  into  their  hands.1 

Whatever  apprehensions  the  emperor  may  have  felt  at 
this  moment,  they  were  probably  excited  not  so  much  by  the 
state  of  affairs  hostility  of  the  barbarians  beyond  the  Alps,  as 
at  Rome.  by  t^e  disquietude  which  had  for  some  time  pre- 
vailed at  Rome.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  citizens  had 
any  particular  distress  to  complain  of,  beyond  the  occasional 
recurrence  of  scarcities  and  inundations.  Nevertheless,  their 

1  Veil.  ii.  111.  Comp.  Dion,  Iv.  31.  It  must  be  observed  that  Velleius 
speaks  in  much  stronger  terms  than  Dion  of  the  anxiety  of  this  crisis,  and  may 
fairly  be  suspected  of  exaggerating  it  from  his  known  disposition  to  flatter 
Tiberius.  Nevertheless,  Suetonius,  no  flatterer  of  Tiberius,  or  of  any  other 
of  the  Caesars,  could  declare  that  Rome  had  experienced  no  such  dangers  since 
the  period  of  the  Punic  wars.  Tib.  16. :  "  Quod  gravissimum  omnium  exter- 
norum  bellorum  post  Punica  per  quindecim  legiones  paremque  auxiliorum  co- 
piam  triennio  gessit." 


A.  U.  759.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  24:9 

complaints  were  becoming  louder  and  more  frequent.  Au- 
gustus had  yielded  to  their  outcries  and  redoubled  his  lar- 
gesses. To  rid  the  city  of  its  superfluous  consumers,  he  had 
ordered  that  the  gladiators  and  the  slaves  exposed  for  sale 
should  be  removed  to  a  hundred  miles'  distance.  He  set 
the  example  of  dismissing  a  portion  of  his  own  household ; 
and  he  gave  the  senators  permission,  long  jealously  withheld, 
to  quit  Rome  for  their  estates.1  But  fresh  causes  of  discon- 
tent arose  with  the  same  harassing  results.  Fires  broke  out 
in  the  city  in  quickly  recurring  succession.  Again  the  people 
murmured,  as  if  their  chief  were  responsible  for  assaults  of 
every  element.  Under  despotic  governments,  in-  Digcontent  of 
cendiary  fives  have  been  employed  to  arrest  the  man^tldTn 
attention  of  the  rulers  to  the  wants  of  their  sub-  variouB  wa>'8- 
jects,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  hands  of  citizens  them- 
selves may  have  caused  the  conflagrations  they  now  resented. 
This,  however,  was  the  origin  of  the  nightly  watch  of  the 
city,  a  police  formed  in  the  first  instance  from  the  emperor's 
own  freedmen,  and  meant  to  serve  a  temporary  purpose,  but 
soon  found  too  useful,  both  to  the  public  service  and  the  im- 
perial interests,  to  be  abandoned.8  Such  long  neglect  of  so 
obvious  a  precaution  shows  strongly  the  power  of  the  aristo- 
cratic element  in  the  old  constitution.  The  nobles,  secure  in 
their  isolated  dwellings  on  the  hills  of  Rome,  had  no  concern 
for  the  frail  and  crowded  tenements  of  the  commons,  and  let 
matters  take  their  course  with  frigid  indiflerence.*  But  not- 
withstanding these  concessions  made  to  the  popular  cry  by 
the  patron  of  the  people,  the  discontent  of  the  citizens  was 

1  Dion,  lv.  22,  23.  26. ;  Oros.  vii.  3.  A.  c.  Y58,  *759 ;  Fischer,  Roem.  Zeit. 

3  Suet.  Oct.  30. ;  Dion,  lv.  26. 

s  The  history  of  this  subject  is  given  briefly  by  Paulus  in  the  Digest,  i.  15. 
1. :  "  Apud  vetustiores  incendiis  arcendis  triumviri  prseerant,  qui  ab  eo  quod 
excubias  agebant  nocturni  dicti  sunt.  Interveniebant  non  nunquam  et  aediles 
et  tribuni  plebis.  Erat  autem  familia  publica  circa  portam  et  muros  disposita, 
unde  ei  opus  esset  evocabatur.  Fuerant  et  private  familiae  qui  incendia  vel 
mercede  vel  gratia  exstinguerent." — The  service  was  thus  left  to  the  occasional 
energy  of  the  magistrates  or  to  private  enterprise.  "  Deinde  D.  Augustus 
maluit  per  se  huic  rei  consuli."  Reimar  on  Dion,  I.  c. 


250  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  6. 

little  appeased.  They  had  become  tired  of  their  favourite. 
Augustus  had  grown  old  and  morose  ;  his  figure  had  lost  its 
grace,  his  government  its  brilliancy.  The  smoothness  with 
which  the  machine  of  empire  moved  allowed  men  to  forget 
how  easily  it  might  be  disarranged,  and  how  fatal  might  be 
the  consequences  of  disturbance.  The  mildness  of  the  admin- 
istration encouraged  the  murmurs  of  the  discontented,  and 
many  an  aimless  muttering  of  change  was  heard  in  the  famil- 
iar talk  of  a  thoughtless  populace.1  Seditious  placards  were 
posted  at  night  in  the  public  places.  The  origin  of  these 
demonstrations  was  said  to  be  traced  to  a  certain  Plautius 
Rufus,  a  noble  of  no  personal  distinction ;  it  was  believed, 
however,  that  he  was  only  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  con- 
cealed agitators."  Suspicion  and  apprehension  everywhere 
prevailed ;  and  these  were  increased  rather  than  allayed  by 
the  inquiries  of  the  government,  which  offered  rewards  for 
the  discovery  of  the  guilty  and  obtained  numerous  denuncia- 
tions. A  scarcity,  with  which  the  city  was  threatened,  con- 
tributed to  aggravate  alarm,  which  only  departed  with  the 
return  of  plenty  and  security ;  when  good  humour  was  resto- 
Good  humour  Te&  ty  ^e  games  of  Tiberius  and  the  young  Ger- 
gam^ofbTibe-e  manicus  in  honour  of  the  still  lamented  Drusus. 
Still  greater  was  the  delight  universally  mani- 
fested when  Tiberius  inscribed  his  deceased  brother's  name, 
in  conjunction  with  his  own,  on  the  temple  he  now  dedicated 
to  the  twin-deities,  Castor  and  Pollux.' 

But  scarcely  had  this  cloud  passed  away,  and  Tiberius 
returned  to  the  attack  on  Maroboduus  beyond  the  Danube, 
Alacrity  of  the  than  the  news  arrived  of  the  great  Pannonian 
obeying  the  revolt,  which  had  broken  out  in  his  rear.  For- 

1  Dion,  Iv.  27. :  *ol  n-oAAa  ntv  KO!  ipayfpws  vewrtpoVoia  5ieA.aA.ow. 

5  Suet  Oct.  25. ;  Dion,  /.  c. 

*  This  dedication  (Suet.  Tib.  20.)  seems  to  have  taken  place  early  in  the 
spring  of  759,  when  Tiberius  was  again  at  Rome  for  a  few  months  before  pro- 
ceeding to  the  campaign  on  the  Danube.  Dion,  Iv.  27.,  who  adds,  rd  rf  yap 
rS>v  Tt6\tnov  fiuo  Siy'icei,  KCU  tt  rrjv  ir&\iv,  dfort  »of>a<rx°'»  <rwfX<**  ivtfyoi-ra, 
rb  fi.fi>  TI,  -rpa.yfJLa.ruev  TIVUIV  ?y*Ka,  rb  5t  JHj  jrAtJo-rov,  (po&ovptvos  HT]  &  AC- 
yovffTot  &\\ov  rtva,  irapo  TT)V  awovcrtay  airrov 


A.U.  759.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  251 

tunately,  abundance  reigned  at  this  moment  in  directions  of 
the  city,  and  while  the  supply  of  their  simple 
necessaries  was  abundant,  the  populace  was  never  dangerous 
to  the  government  which  maintained  it  hi  idleness.  Anxious 
as  Augustus  must  have  been,  at  such  a  crisis,  with  the  possi- 
bility of  a  domestic  insurrection  to  complicate  and  aggravate 
it,  he  might  be  reassured  by  the  trembling  eagerness  with 
which  all  classes  now  joined  in  obeying  his  directions  for 
their  Common  safety.  The  citizens  submitted  to  the  fresh 
imposition  of  a  fiftieth  on  the  sale  of  slaves ;  and  these  re- 
peated recognitions,  however  trifling  in  amount,  of  their  lia- 
bility to  share  the  burdens  of  their  subjects,  served  to  confirm 
an  important  principle.  They  marked,  in  a  way  which  no 
politician  could  mistake,  the  equalization  of  all  classes  under 
the  rising  monarchy  of  the  empire. 

The  new  levies,  hastily  raised  and  equipped,  were  entrusted 
to  the  command  of  the  youthful  Germanicus,  who  had  now 
nearly  completed  his  twenty-first  year.1      The 
name  he  bore  and  the   favour  which   already  Germanicus  in 

1-11.  r>     .          ,  Pannonia. 

attached  to  him,  marked  him  as  a  ntting  leader  A.  D.  7. 
for  this  popular  armament :  and  Augustus  beheld 
with  satisfaction  in  the  third  generation  of  his  family,  quali- 
ties, both  of  mind  and  person,  which  augured  the  highest 
distinction.  This  was  the  more  consolatory  to  the  bereaved 
grandsire,  as  the  next  in  years  of  the  Csesarean  house,  entitled 
not  less  from  his  name  than  Germanicus  to  the  love  of  the 
soldiers,  though  placed  in  the  same  line  of  succession  with 
him,  seemed  to  offer  no  such  happy  promise.  This  was 
Agrippa  Postumus,  the  youngest  child  of  Julia,  born  after 
his  father's  decease,  on  whom,  as  nearest  to  him  in  blood,  the 
affection  Augustus  had  lavished  on  Caius  and  Lucius  might 

1  The  younger  Germanicus,  son  of  Nero  Claudius  Drusus,  to  whom  the 
title  of  Germanicus  was  assigned  after  his  father's  premature  death,  was  born 
A.  u.  739,  probably  in  September.  He  was  now  despatched  on  his  first  cam- 
paign in  the  summer  of  760.  Dion,  1  v.  30.  His  praenomen  is  not  ascertained  ; 
it  was  probably  the  same  as  his  father's.  Nero,  which  was  originally  a  cogno- 
men, became  at  this  time  a  praenomen  of  the  Claudian  house.  Suet.  Claud.  1. 


252  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  6. 

now  be  expected  to  devolve.  But  from  some  defect  of  breed- 
Disappoint-  ing,  if  not  of  temper,  the  last  of  the  Agrippas 
t^esnat°thtugT18'  grievously  degenerated  from  his  kindred.  Un- 
AgrippaPostu-  gamty  m  person,  and  awkward  in  every  gesture, 
muB-  he  seemed  unsusceptible,  both  in  mind  and  body, 

of  the  training  suitable  to  his  station.  Docility,  both  moral 
and  physical,  was  a  quality  to  which  the  Romans  attached 
peculiar  importance.  They  considered  a  plastic  nature  the 
great  mark  of  distinction  between  the  gentle  and  the  base, 
the  free  and  the  servile  character ;  and  as  regarded  his  own 
family,  Augustus  was  no  doubt  peculiarly  sensitive  on  this 
point,  which  seemed  to  touch  on  his  imperial  mission:  for 
the  beauty  of  his  own  person,  and  the  fineness  of  his  intellect, 
constituted  a  powerful  element  in  his  claim,  as  well  as  in  that 
of  the  divine  Julius,  to  reign  over  the  free  Roman  people. 
That  any  of  his  descendants,  whom  he  had  himself  reared  or 
adopted,  should  prove  unworthy  in  manners  or  appearance  of 
the  ambrosian  blood  of  their  parent  Venus,  pierced  him  to 
the  quick.  He  considered  it  as  a  personal  disgrace,  implying 
some  defect  on  his  own  part ;  and  he  could  not  bear  that 
such  a  failure  should  be  manifested  in  the  face  of  his  ad- 
mirers. To  this  sentiment  the  unfortunate  but  guilty  Julia 
had  been  partly  sacrificed :  Agrippa,  even  more  unfortunate, 
was  at  least  guiltless.  The  worst  that  could  be  alleged 
against  him  was  that  his  manners  were  what  the  Romans 
contemptuously  designated  as  servile:  he  had  neither  the 
martial  nor  the  literary  spirit  of  the  true  optimate.  In- 
stead of  devoting  himself  to  the  mimic  war  of  the  Campus 
Martius  or  the  mimic  debates  of  the  rhetoricians'  schools,  he 
would  recline  in  the  shade  of  a  Baian  portico,  and  listlessly 
angle  in  the  placid  waters  beneath  it.  For  the  triumphs  of 
his  rod  and  line  he  claimed,  it  was  said,  the  attributes  of 
Neptune,  an  assumption  which  had  been  deemed  abominable 
even  in  Sextus,  when  he  ruled  supreme  over  the  Tyrrhene 
and  Ionian,  and  was  master  of  a  thousand  triremes.1  Doubt- 
less vigilant  enemies  were  not  wanting  to  insinuate  that  his 
1  Dion,  lv.  32. 


A.U.  760.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  253 

wanton  mother  had  played  false  to  her  husband,  and  suffered 
the  turbid  blood  of  a  plebeian  paramour  to  mingle  with  the 
Julian  ichor.  Of  all  the  direct  descendants  of  Augustus  this 
youth  remained  alone  to  dispute  with  the  Claudian  branch  of 
the  Caesarean  stem  the  honours  which  were  now  almost  as- 
sured to  it.  The  intrigues  of  Livia  did  not  sleep  in  the  last 
crisis  of  the  long  contest  she  had  waged  against  the  claims 
of  the  rival  race.  If,  as  was  reported,  Agrippa  allowed  him- 
self to  use  the  language  of  exasperation  against  her,  we  may 
believe  that  he  at  least  gave  credence  to  the  current  stories 
of  her  machinations  and  crimes.  But  it  is  added  that,  in  his 
bursts  of  uncontrolled  passion,  he  did  not  spare  Augustus 
himself,  whom  he  accused  of  depriving  him  of  his  legitimate 
patrimony,  by  the  acceptance  of  his  father's  legacy. 

To  make  such  a  charge  as  this  against  the  man  who  was 
able,  and  naturally  willing,  to  indemnify  him  far  beyond  any 
loss  he  had  sustained,  was  an  act  of  stolid  per- 

V,        Banishment  of 

versity;  and  such  was  the  character  generally,  Agrippa  Postu- 

«  -it  nms. 

and  we  must  suppose  not  unjustly,  attributed  to 
Postumus.1  The  emperor  determined,  with  one  last  pang,  to 
rid  himself  of  the  embarrassment  of  so  unworthy  a  claimant 
on  his  favour.  He  caused  him  to  be  arrested  and  carried  to 
Planasia,  a  barren  rock  off  the  coast  of  Ilva,  and  there  de- 
tained as  a  state  prisoner.  This  extreme  act  of  parental 
authority  towards  a  child  who  had  already  assumed  the  toga, 
and  was  accused  of  no  crime,  he  caused  the  senate  to  ratify 
by  a  decree,  in  which  its  motives  were  explained,  and  justified 
no  doubt  by  ancient  precedents.2  Having  nerved  himself 
with  fortitude  thus  to  violate  his  feelings  for  the  common 
weal,  as  he  imagined,  perhaps  more  truly  as  a  sacrifice  to  his 

1  Tac.  Ann.  i.  3. :  "  Rudem  sane  bonarum  artium  et  robore  corporis  sto- 
lide  ferocem."  Yell.  ii.  112.  :  "  Mira  pravitate  animi  atque  ingenii  in  prasci- 
pitia  conversus."  Suet.  Oct.  65. :  "  Ingenium  sordidum  et  ferox." 

a  Tac.  Ann.  i.  6. :  "  Multa  saevaque  Augustus  de  moribus  adolescentis 
questus,  ut  exilium  ejus  senatusconsulto  sanciretur  perfecerat."  Dion,  Iv.  32. 
Suetonius  states  that  he  was  first  relegated  to  Surrentum  ;  afterwards,  "  nihilo 
tractabiliorem  immo  in  dies  amentiorem  in  insulam  transportavit,  sepsitque 
insuper  custodia  militum."  Suet.  I.  c. 


254  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

own  pride,  he  turned  with  the  yearnings  of  disappointed 
affection  to  the  object  on  which  his  hopes  were  now  begin- 
ning to  centre,  the  fair  promise  of  the  gallant  Germanicus. 
omise  T^e  appointment  of  this  young  prince  to  his  first 
of Ger-  military  command  gave  scope  to  talents  and  a 
disposition  not  unworthy  of  Drusus  the  well- 
beloved.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  had  worsted  one  of 
the  Dalmatian  tribes,  while  Tiberius,  returning  from  the 
Danube,  reoccupied  Pannonia  with  an  overwhelming  force. 
The  chiefs  of  the  insurgent  armies  had  taken  advantage  of 
his  absence  to  move  eastward,  in  order  to  intercept  the 
forces  which  Severus,  who  commanded  in  Mcesia,  was  bring- 
ing up  from  that  quarter.  They  had  succeeded  in  meeting 
him,  and  had  compelled  him  to  await  their  onset  in  his  camp, 
near  the  Palus  Volcea,  or  lake  of  Balaton,  but  they  were 
unable  to  force  his  well-defended  entrenchments.  Failing 
in  this  attempt,  they  found  themselves  pressed  by  the  Roman 
arms  on  three  sides,  and  falling  back  on  a  country  which  was 
no  longer  able  to  support  them,  they  suffered  the  extremes  of 
famine  and  pestilence  ;  yet  when  at  last  they  sued  for  peace, 
they  still  sued  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  in  an  attitude 
of  defiance,  with  which  the  Roman  leader  disdained  to  parley. 
More  than  once,  it  was  asserted,  did  Augustus  declare  him- 
self satisfied,  and  exhort  Tiberius  to  conclude  a  war  which 
he  suspected  him  of  purposely  protracting.1  But  Tiberius 
Final  Bubjuf?a-  knew,  perhaps,  the  inveterate  hostility  the  Roman 
™nianBa?idan~  government  had  provoked,  as  well  as  the  resolu- 
the*£n9?B'  tion  of  his  opponents.  When  the  Dalmatian 
A.  u.  762.  Bato  was  led  captive  into  his  presence,  and  was 
asked  what  had  induced  him  to  revolt,  and  to  persist  so  long 
in  a  desperate  struggle,  It  is  your  own  doing,  he  boldly 
answered,  who  send  not  dogs  or  shepherds  to  protect  your 
sheep,  but  wolves  to  prey  on  them.  Dalmatia,  however,  says 

1  Suet  Tib.  16.:  "  Quanquam  saepius  revocaretur,  tamen  perseveravit, 
metuens  ne  vicinus  et  prsevalens  hostis  instaret  ultro  cedentibus."  Comp. 
Dion,  IT.  81. :  viroxTevffas  it  rbi*  Ti/Jt'piov,  is  SvrnBfrra  ntv  Sta  "ra.x*wv  avrovt 
rpiftovra  5«  ^tirinjSej. 


A.U.762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  255 

the  historian,  returned  to  her  obedience,  partly  by  conquest 
and  partly  on  capitulation.1  Nevertheless  the  gallant  Bato, 
who  seems  to  have  been  released  on  his  pretended  submis- 
sion, once  more  defied  the  conquerors.  When  another  Bato, 
the  chief  of  the  Pannonians,  sought  the  favour  of  the  Romans 
by  betraying  his  colleague  Pinnes,  the  Dalmatian  turned  his 
arms  against  the  traitor,  and  speedily  overpowered  and  slew 
him.  The  Pannonians  now  rose  once  more  against  the  in- 
vaders ;  but,  exhausted  and  dispirited  by  their  own  divisions, 
they  were  easily  reduced.  Bato  himself  did  not  refrain  from 
plundering  allies  who  could  serve  his  hopeless  cause  no  long- 
er. Keeping  hold  of  the  passes  of  the  mountains  between 
Pannonia  and  his  own  country,  he  continued  to  maintain  his 
personal  independence ;  but  it  was  the  independence  of  a 
brigand  chief,  no  longer  of  a  national  leader.  The  war 
dwindled  into  the  chase  of  a  cunning  fugitive  from  post  to 
post,  and  ceases  from  henceforth  to  occupy  a  place  in  history. 
The  pacification  of  the  great  province  between  the  Adriatic 
and  the  Danube  was  not  finally  completed  by  Germanicus 
till  the  autumn  of  the  year  762,2 

Meanwhile,  deprived  of  the  consoling  presence  of  all  his 
nearest  kinsmen,  the  emperor  had  begun,  in  the  solitude  of 
his  palace,  to  find  the  cares  of  sovereignty  insup-  Mortifications 
portably  onerous.  He  ventured  by  degrees  to  of  AusustU8- 
cast  aside  a  portion  of  the  overwhelming  responsibilities  to 
which  he  had  subjected  himself.  The  senators,  at  whose 
meetings  he  had  attended  with  scrupulous  punctuality,  were 
now  allowed  to  determine  many  matters  in  his  absence ;  he 
desisted  from  the  habit  of  appearing  in  person  at  the  mock 
elections  of  the  Comitia;  while  from  the  year  760,  when 
the  votes  had  been  interrupted  by  popular  disturbances,  he 
directed  all  the  magistrates  to  be  chosen  on  his  own  imme- 
diate nomination.  The  anxieties  of  the  Pannonian  war  drew 
him  from  the  city  as  far  as  Ariminum,  and  the  citizens  ofiered 
vows  for  his  safety  on  his  departure,  and  of  thanksgiving  on 

1  Dion,  Ir.  33,  34.;  Veil.  ii.  110-116. 

2  Dion,  Ivi.  11-17. ;  Zonaras,  x.  37. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

his  return,  as  if  he  had  undergone  the  perils  of  a  foreign 
campaign.  Satiety  had  left  him  weary  and  restless :  his 
cheerful  and  collected  temper  gave  way  under  repeated  alarms 
and  accumulated  vexations.  After  disarming  the  animosity 
of  noble  intriguers  by  unexpected  clemency,  he  found  himself 
struck  at  by  the  hands  of  bondmen  and  adventurers.  His 
life  was  attempted  by  an  obscure  slave  named  Telephus, 
whose  brain  was  heated  with  the  imagination  that  he  was 
destined  to  reign.  Audasius,  a  convicted  forger,  and  Epica- 
dus,  a  foreign  freedman,  sought  to  carry  off 

Fresh  conspira-     .  ._  T   ..       °  .  . 

cies  against  Agrippa  jrostumus  and  Julia  from  their  exile, 
and  put  them  at  the  head  of  a  seditious  move- 
ment.1 This  event,  the  date  of  which,  however,  cannot  be 
fixed  precisely,  may  have  determined  the  emperor  to  inflict 
banishment  upon  another  member  of  the  same  hapless. family. 
Julia  had  left  behind  her  at  Rome,  besides  Caius  and  Lucius, 
and  the  wretched  Postumus,  two  daughters,  a  Julia  and  an 
Agrippina.  The  first  of  these  had  been  married  to  L.  ^Emil- 
ius  Paulus,  grand-nephew  of  the  triumvir  Lepidus,  the  head 
of  the  house  which  might  still  be  considered  the  noblest  in 
Rome  ;  while  the  other,  who  was  younger,  perhaps  by  some 
years,  was  united  to  her  kinsman,  Germanicus,  apparently 
about  her  own  age.  The  ^Emilii  continued  for  several  gene- 
rations to  betray  the  pride  of  race  which  could  ill  brook  the 
ascendency  of  a  Julius  or  a  Claudius.2  The  son  of  the  trium- 

1  Suet.  Oct.  19. 

a  The  irregular  ambition  hereditary  in  the  JSmilii  is  noted  in  some  lines 
of  a  very  late  writer,  which  the  historical  student  may  do  well  to  remember. 
Rutil.  Itiner.  295. : 

"  Inter  castrorum  vestigia  sermo  retexit 

Sardoam,  Lepido  praecipitante,  fugam  .  .  . 
Ille  tamen  Lepidus  pejor,  civilibus  armis 

Qui  gessit  sociis  impia  bella  tribua  .  .  . 
Insidias  paci  moliri  tertius  ausus 

Tristibus  exegit  congrua  fata  reis. 
Quart  us  Caesareo  dum  vult  irrepere  regno 

Incest!  pcenam  solvit  adulterii." 

The  last  of  these  cases  refers  to  a  later  period,  and  will  be  recorded  in  its  place. 


A.U.762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  257 

vir  had  perished,  as  we  have  seen,  for  aiming  at  the  subver- 
sion of  the  emperor's  power ;  and  the  husband  of  Julia  was 
now  doomed  also  to  suffer  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy.  The 
exact  period  of  this  treason  is  not  known,  nor  is  its  punish- 
ment specified.  The  culprit  was  confined  or 

*  .  Banishment  of 

banished :    his  wife,   whose  irregularities  were  the  younger 
numerous  and  notorious,  allied  herself  with  D.    uiaj>  9. 
Silanus,  and  was  convicted  of  adultery.    Silanus 
was  in  turn  charged  with  treasonable  aspirations,  with  what 
result  we  know  not ;  but  the  crime  of  Julia,  which  brought 
scandal  as  well  as  danger  on  the  imperial  house,  was  punished 
by  relegation  to  an  island.    Augustus  was  deeply  affected  at 
this  outbreak  of  the  evil  blood  of  the  mother  in  the  next 
generation.    Though  it  was  recorded,  as  a  proof  of  parental 
feeling,  that  he  never  suffered  one  of  his  own  race  to  be  put 
to  death,  he  forbade  the  offspring  of  this  hateful  amour  to  be 
reared,  and,  reflecting  with  indignation  on  the  vices  of  both 
the  Julias,  exclaimed,  in  the  language  of  Homer,  better  he 
had  never  been  married  and  had  died  childless.1 

The  silence  of  history  throws  a  veil  over  the  latter  years 
of  Augustus,  and  has,  doubtless,  buried  many  acts  of  morose 
severity,  on  which  no  citizen  ventured  to  consign  .Banishment  of 
his  comments  to  writing.  The  recollection,  how-  the  poet  Ovid- 
ever,  of  one  example  of  the  kind,  which  may  be  regarded  as 
a  type  of  the  imperial  tyranny  at  this  period,  has  been  casu- 
ally preserved.  If  the  personal  freedom  of  the  citizen  was 

The  ^Emilius  of  whom  we  are  now  treating  is  not  mentioned  in  these  lines, 
because  he  bore  the  cognomen  Paulus.  See  the  stemma  of  the  JSmilii  in  ap- 
pendix to  chapter  1. 

1  Tac.  Ann.  i.  6. :  "  In  nullius  unquam  suorum  necem  duravit."     Suet. 
Oct.  65.,  quotes  from  the  Iliad,  iii.  40. : 

aW  6<$>t\ov  6ya/j.6s  r'  c-jucj/cu,  &yov6s  T'  airoAcVdat. 
In  the  original  the  expression  is  addressed  by  Hector  to  Paris, — 

afff  o<pe\fs  &yoi>6s  r'  ejuccai,  fryajitoj  T'  airoXeVflai : 

the  word  &yovos  evidently  meaning  "never  born;  "  but  Augustus,  I  presume, 
or  at  least  his  biographer,  understood  it  differently.  The  date  of  the  younger 
Julia's  banishment  is  fixed  to  761  by  Tacitus,  Ann,  iv.  71. ;  and  Suetonius 
tells  us  that  her  place  of  confinement  was  the  island  of  Trimerus,  off  the  coast 
of  Apulia. 

VOL.  IT. — 17 


258  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

still  guarded  by  the  laws,  and  the  accused  still  competent  to 
defend  himself  before  the  ordinary  tribunals ;  if  advocates 
were  still  bold  and  judges  honourable,  there  were,  neverthe- 
less, powers  beside  the  laws,  which  had  found  a  way  of  dis- 
pensing with  their  application,  in  cases  where  their  interfe- 
rence might  prove  inconvenient.  When  the  emperor  wished 
to  rid  himself  of  a  disagreeable  citizen,  he  directed  him  to 
remove  from  Rome  to  some  distant  spot  indicated  to  him ; 
and  such  was  the  authority  of  his  mere  word,  that  without 
defence,  without  trial,  without  sentence,  without  the  use  or 
even  threat  of  force,  the  culprit  at  once  obeyed,  and  plunged 
silently  into  oblivion.  The  emperor  might,  if  he  pleased, 
appease  public  curiosity  by  declaring  the  cause  of  this  sudden 
removal ;  but  the  mere  act  of  his  will  required  neither  the 
concurrence  nor  the  ratification  of  any  legal  tribunal.  Such 
was  the  celebrated  exile  of  Publius  Ovidius  Naso,  a  popular 
favourite,  whose  abuse  of  his  noble  gifts  might  seem  calculated 
to  disarm  a  tyrant's  jealousy,  and  even  secure  his  approbation. 
This  illustrious  poet,  familiar  to  our  childhood  under  the 
cherished  name  of  Ovid,  was  a  man  of  fashion  and  figure,  the 
son  of  a  Roman  knight  of  Sulmo,  who  had  been  introduced 
to  the  best  society  of  the  capital,  and  had  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing himself  there  by  the  charm  of  his  writings  and  the  dex- 
terity of  his  adulation.  He  was  undoubtedly  a  writer  of  un- 
common genius,  of  a  fertility  and  invention  unsurpassed  by 
any  of  his  countrymen,  and  little  inferior  to  any  in  language 
and  versification.  His  various  compositions  comprehend  many 
character  of  pieces  of  unsullied  purity  and  grace,  which  are 
his  poetry.  gtjj|  ^  grgt  pages  of  antiquity  we  put  into  the 
hands  of  our  children,  and  among  the  last  on  which  we  turn 
the  retrospect  of  our  own  declining  years.  But  Ovid  had 
desecrated  his  abilities  by  the  licentiousness  of  many  of  his 
subjects,  and  the  grossness  with  which  he  treated  them :  he 
had  thrown  himself  on  the  foul  track  of  far  inferior  men, 
who  sought  the  favour  of  the  government  by  inculcating 
frivolity  of  sentiment,  and  degrading  the  character  of  their 
countrymen.  It  may  be  said,  perhaps,  in  excuse  for  Ovid, 


A.U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  259 

that  he  erred  from  mere  gaiety  of  heart,  stimulated  by  the 
applause  of  greatness  and  beauty :  he  says  of  himself,  and  his 
protestations  are  not  unworthy  of  belief,  that  his  verses  were 
purer  than  those  he  imitated,  and  his  manners  purer  than  his 
verses.1  His  amatory  poems  were  principally  the  work  of 
his  earlier  years,  and  the  maturity  of  his  powers  had  been 
devoted  sedulously,  nor  with  less  felicity,  to  subjects  of  wider 
scope  and  higher  interest.8  "While  thus  honourably  engaged, 
suddenly,  at  the  close  of  the  year  761,  he  was  bade  to  depart 
from  Rome,  and  the  obscure  town  of  Tomi,  on  the  wild  shores 
of  the  Euxine,  was  denoted  as  the  place  to  which  he  should 
transport  himself.3  A  few  hours  only  were  allowed  him  to 
prepare  for  the  journey,  which  was  to  remove  him  for  ever 
from  his  home,  his  friends  and  family.  He  was  exiled,  un- 
heard and  unarraigned,  and  the  cause  of  his  banishment  was 
only  vaguely  indicated  by  a  complaint  against  the  pernicious 
tendency  of  his  love  verses.  The  poet  of  intrigue  and  gal- 
lantry had  a  wife,  to  whom  he  was  as  tenderly  attached  as 

1  See  his  elaborate  but  by  no  means  satisfactory  excuses  in  the  second  book 
of  the  Tristia. 

*  Since  the  publication  of  the  Ars  Amandi,  which  may  be  fixed  to  the 
year  752,  he  had  laboured  on  the  wonderful  epic  of  the  Metamorphoses,  in 
which,  though  he  never  veils  the  licentiousness  of  mythological  story,  he  had 
at  least  no  immoral  purpose ;  and  on  his  versified  rationale  of  the  national 
calendar,  which,  with  a  few  incidental  blemishes,  is  on  the  whole  a  model  of 
Roman  dignity.  The  former  of  these  works  was  completed  but  not  finally 
corrected  at  the  moment  of  his  banishment,  and  was  given  to  the  world  with 
some  imperfections ;  of  the  latter,  the  six  books  we  possess  were  probably  fin- 
ished, and  the  remaining  six  perhaps  only  rudely  sketched  out.  Though  Ovid 
speaks  of  the  twelve  books  as  written,  "  Sex  ego  fastorum  scrips!  totidemque 
libellos,"  he  says,  nevertheless,  that  the  work  was  interrupted  by  his  disgrace  ; 
and,  as  he  complains  that  he  had  no  books  with  him  at  Tomi,  and  was  unable  to 
study,  it  seems  very  improbable  that  a  work  which  required  so  much  research 
could  have  been  resumed  under  such  unfavourable  circumstances.  Nor  in  all 
his  writings  at  Tomi  does  he  ever  allude  to  it  as  in  progress. 

3  Ovid,  Trist.  iv.  10.  He  had  at  this  time,  as  he  informs  us,  completed 
his  fiftieth  year :  "  decem  lustris  omni  sine  labe  peractis."  He  was  born  March 
20.  711,  at  the  epoch  of  the  battle  of  Mutina,  and  his  banishment  took  place 
in  December  of  761.  Tris.  i.  11.  3.  See  Fischer  in  Ann.  Clinton  is  to  be 
understood  in  the  same  sense,  though,  from  some  confusion  in  his  arrangement, 
it  requires  considerable  attention  to  detect  his  real  view. 


260  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

the  severest  of  the  old  Roman  censors  ;  but  she  was  forbid- 
den to  accompany,  or  to  rejoin  him.  A  single  friend  ven- 
tured to  break  the  agonies  of  parting,  by  attending  him 
during  the  first  days  of  travel ;  and  he  too  fell  a  victim,  not 
long  afterwards,  to  the  tyrant's  fatal  suspicions.  While  the 
scions  of  the  imperial  family,  who  might  perhaps  some  day 
be  recalled,  were  retained  in  durance  within  sight  of  the 
Latian  coast ;  the  unfortunate  knight,  as  if  to  preclude  all 
hope  of  pardon,  was  cast  out  on  an  unknown  frontier,  many 
hundred  miles  distant.  We  observe  with  an  awful  sense  of 
the  emperor's  power,  that  the  island  of  Planasia  or  Panda- 
teria,  past  which  whole  fleets  sailed  daily,  was  deemed  a 
prison  out  of  which  no  criminal  could  break :  but  our  awe 
is  enhanced  on  hearing  that  a  citizen  condemned  to  banish- 
ment on  the  frontiers  of  the  empire  should  simply  receive  an 
order  to  repair  there,  and  be  left  to  find  his  way,  perhaps 
even  unattended,  without  fear  of  his  lingering  on  his  route 
or  diverging  from  it.1 

The  cause  of  this  cruel  punishment  was  surely  not  that 
which  Augustus  thought  fit  to  assign.  It  seems  to  have  been 
Fruitless  spec-  °f  a  nature  which  he  could  not  venture  to  declare 
SSSrfiM?"  openly:  had  it  been  an  offence  against  public 
banishment.  morality,  he  would  have  claimed  merit  for  mak- 
ing it  the  subject  of  a  public  arraignment.  Though  the  suf- 
ferer bows  to  his  sentence,  and  acquiesces  discreetly  in  the 
charge  which  he  knows  to  be  fictitious,  his  allusions  point 
plainly  to  some  other  cause,  well  known  to  Augustus  and  to 
himself,  the  possession  apparently,  and  possibly,  as  he  pro- 
tests, the  innocent  possession,  of  some  fatal  secret.  The  con- 
jectures which  have  been  made  regarding  it  may  be  readily  dis- 

1  Ovid  records  with  some  minuteness  the  stages  of  his  long  journey  by  sea 
and  land,  but  gives  no  intimation  that  even  a  single  officer  was  deputed  to 
guard  and  conduct  him.  Nor  does  he  seem  to  have  been  under  any  restraint 
at  Tomi.  The  inhospitable  character  of  the  neighbourhood  may  have  been 
considered  a  sufficient  pledge  for  his  not  attempting  to  escape.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, that  some  exiles  contrived  to  avoid  going  to  their  places  of  banishment. 
Augustus  animadverted  with  no  great  severity  upon  them.  Dion,  Ivi.  27. 


A.  U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  261 

missed  as  groundless.  The  surmise  that  he  had  been  detected 
in  an  intrigue  with  the  elder  Julia,  and  that  she  was  in  fact 
the  lady  to  whom  he  addressed  his  love  verses  under  the  name 
of  Corinna,  though  derived,  perhaps,  from  nearly  contempo- 
rary sources,  is  refuted  by  the  evidence  of  dates.1  The  only 
clue,  as  it  appears,  to  guide  our  inquiries  is  the  coincidence 
of  the  time  with  the  disgrace  of  the  younger  Julia,  and  with 
the  treasonable  attempts  with  which  that  event  seems  to  have 
been  connected.  When,  at  a  later  period,  Fabius  Maximus, 
a  man  of  political  consequence,  falls  under  the  emperor's  dis- 
pleasure, the  unfortunate  exile,  in  a  burst  of  sorrow,  would 
fain  take  the  blame  on  himself,  as  if  his  own  error  had  been 
important  enough  to  involve  in  its  consequences  the  fate  of 
his  noblest  friend.  Putting  these  circumstances  together,  it 
seems  natural  to  surmise  that  Ovid,  though  no  public  man 
himself,  got  unwittingly  implicated  in  the  political  intrigues 
of  the  time,  and  suffered  as  an  accomplice  in  projects,  of  the 
scope  of  which  he  was  perhaps  actually  unconscious.4  From 

I  The  only  ground  for  this  popular  but  untenable  hypothesis,  is  the  misin- 
terpretation of  a  passage  in  Sidonius  Apollinaris : 

"  Et  te  carmina  per  libidinosa 

Notum,  Kaso  tener,  Tomosque  missum, 

Quondam  Caesareae  nimis  puellae 

Falso  nomine  subditum  Corinnaa." 

Even  could  it  be  shown  that  Julia  was  meant  by  the  name  of  the  poet's  mis 
tress  Corinna,  and  that  he  did  really  intrigue  with  her,  k  would  not  follow  from 
this  passage  that  he  was  banished  on  that  account.  The  punishment  of  Julia 
preceded  that  of  Ovid  by  nine  years.  But  he  had  sung  the  praises  of  Corinna 
almost  twenty  years  before  the  first  of  these  dates.  The  name  was  probably 
a  mere  poetical  abstraction.  It  may  be  admitted,  however,  that  Sidonius  re- 
fers to  a  tradition  of  great  antiquity,  derived  from  the  appearance  of  the  Art 
of  Love  about  the  period  of  the  elder  Julia's  disgrace. 

II  See  the  well-known  deprecation,  Trist.  ii.  103.,  quoted  below,  and  JEpisL 
ex  Pont.  ii.  2. : 

"  Nil  nisi  non  sapiens  possum  timidusque  vocari ;  " 

which,  taken  together,  seem  to  imply  that  he  had  shrunk  from  divulging  some 
important  circumstance  which  had  come  accidentally  to  his  knowledge.  Dun- 
lop.  Hist.  Rom.  Lit.  iii.  363.  The  extravagant  adulation  of  Augustus  and 
expressions  of  personal  devotion  which  abound  in  the  writings  from  Tomi,  may 
have  been  meant  as  an  atonement  for  a  political  fault. 


262  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  9. 

the  scene  of  his  punishment,  on  the  verge  of  the  inhospitable 
Dobrudscha,  dreary  and  pestilential  now,  but  then  alterna- 
ting the  frosts  of  the  Neva  with  the  fevers  of  the  Niger,  the 
wretched  victim  poured  forth  his  misery  in  verses  of  grace 
and  sweetness,  though  of  little  power :  he  murmured  at  the 
loss  of  every  friend  and  amusement,  at  the  rudeness  of  the 
people,  and  hostility  of  their  savage  neighbours,  while  he 
shuddered  at  the  sight  of  the  frozen  Euxine,  or  shivered  in 
the  agues  of  the  Danubian  marshes.1  A  gleam  of  reviving 
cheerfulness  induced  him  at  more  favourable  moments  to  cul- 
tivate the  hospitality  of  the  natives,  and  to  flatter  them  by 
acquiring  their  language  and  even  writing  verses  in  it :  but 
neither  lamentations  nor  industry  availed  to  soothe  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  sorrows,  which  were  only  for  a  moment  allayed 
by  anticipations  of  future  celebrity ;  and  he  continued  in  vain 
to  solicit  with  abject  humiliation  the  compassion  of  the 
offended  emperor.  Though  his  punishment  was  not  strictly 
exile,  but  only  the  milder  form  of  relegation,  which  allowed 
him  to  retain  his  fortune  and  his  citizenship,  and  admitted  the 
hope  of  eventual  pardon,  he  never  obtained  remission  of  his 
sentence,  though  he  survived  Augustus  three  years.* 

So  well  known  and  so  deeply  feared  was  the  emperor's 
resentment,  from  whatever  cause  it  proceeded,  that  the  suf- 
ferer's friends  seem  to  have  been  deterred  from 

Silent  discon-       .  ,.  /,        ,  .  rm  t        •  i        i 

tent  of  the         interceding  for  him.      They  cowered  with   the 

rest  of  the  citizens  under  the  suspicious  tyranny 

which  pretended  to  have  done  the  state  a  service  in  robbing 

them  of  the  favourite  ministers  of  their  pleasures.      The 

1  Tomi,  the  spot  of  Ovid's  exile,  is  supposed  to  have  been  at,  or  very  near 
to,  the  modern  Costendje. 

*  See  this  explained  in  the  Tristia,  v.  11. : 

"  Nee  vitara  nee  opes  nee  jus  mihi  civis  ademit  .  .  . 

Nil  nisi  me  patriis  jussit  abire  focis  .... 
Ipse  relegati,  non  exsulls,  utitur  in  me  Nomine." 

The  date  of  Ovid's  death,  A.  c.  770,  or  early  in  771,  in  his  sixtieth  year,  is 
established  by  Euseb.  Chron.  ii.  p.  157.,  and  the  Auctor  Vitas  Ovid.  Fischer 
in  Ann.  767.  Comp.  Clinton,  Fast.  Hell.  iii.  275.,  Fast.  Rom.  i.  5. 


A.  U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  263 

Loves  and  Graces  might  seem  to  have  fled  from  the  city  of 
Venus  with  the  banishment  of  Ovid  and  the  Julias,  the  one 
the  high  priest  of  Gallantry  and  Dissipation,  the  others  the 
most  distinguished  of  their  devotees.  The  pretence  of  a 
regard  for  public  morals  was  derided  in  secret  by  the  rising 
generation  of  sensualists  and  triflers.  They  thought  it  hard 
to  be  deprived  of  their  amusements  to  satisfy  the  scruples 
of  a  worn-out  debauchee,  or  to  glorify  the  cold  correctness 
of  an  unamiable  prude.  When  Ovid,  in  an  unguarded  mo- 
ment of  mythological  reverie,  chose  to  liken  his  mysterious 
crime  to  the  misfortune  of  Actaeon,  who  had  startled  the 
shiftless  Diana,  the  Romans  were  too  clever  in  pasquinade 
not  to  seize  on  an  obvious  innuendo ;  nor  could  it  be  left  to 
the  ingenuity  of  a  modern  to  be  the  first  to  suggest  that  he 
had  discovered  the  empress  naked  in  her  bath.1  It  is  not 
improbable  that  some  of  the  bitter  lampoons  against  the  em- 
peror's private  habits,  specimens  of  which  have  been  pre- 
served by  Suetonius,  date  from  this  reign  of  mortification 
and  terror. 

The  closing  years  of  a  long  and  prosperous  reign  have  not 
unfrequently  been  clouded  with  popular  discontent.  Even  the 

1  Ovid,  Trist.  ii.  103. : 

"  Cur  aliquid  vidi,  cur  noxia  lumina  feci  ? 

Cur  imprudent!  cognita  culpa  mihi  ? 
Inscius  Actaeon  vidit  sine  vestc  Dianam : 
Prseda  futt  canibus  non  minus  ille  suis." 

Dryden  has  the  merit  of  the  conjecture  founded  on  these  lines,  but  it  seems 
impossible  it  could  have  escaped  the  malicious  wit  of  Ovid's  own  contempora- 
ries. Another  notion  is,  that  he  had  surprised  the  emperor  himself  in  some 
grave  indecorum.  I  have  seen  a  disquisition  to  prove  that  his  real  offence 
was  his  having  too  nearly  divulged  the  meaning  of  the  Eleusiman  mysteries. 
The  peccant  passage  is  in  the  Metamorphoses,  xv.  368. : 

"  Pressus  humo  bellator  equus  crabronis  origo  est : 

Concava  litoreo  si  demas  brachia  cancro, 

Caetera  supponas  terra,  de  parte  sepulta 

Scorpius  exibit,  caudaque  minabitur  unca :  " 

Tho  reader  will  rather  be  inclined  to  complain  that  if  he  really  knew  the  secret, 
he  has  been  only  too  successful  in  concealing  it. 


264:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  |A.D.  9. 

state  of  o  u-    su^Jects  an<^  courtiers   of  a  despotism  become 
iar  feeling  at      wearied  at  last  with  hearing    their    sovereign 

this  period.  *- 

styled  the  Just,  the  Beneficent,  or  the  .fortu- 
nate. The  court  of  Augustus  indeed  had  never  pandered  by 
meretricious  brilliancy  to  the  tastes  of  vulgar  gentility,  and 
accordingly,  in  respect  to  show  and  ornament,  the  setting  of 
the  imperial  sun  suffered  no  eclipse.  The  prince  of  the 
Roman  people  had  presided  over  the  national  intelligence. 
He  had  sought  to  educate  his  subjects  by  the  patronage  of 
literary  merit,  and  by  his  graceful  recognition  of  some  of  the 
best  objects  of  national  interest  had  even  created  a  genuine 
appreciation  of  them.  But  the  era  of  Virgil  and  Horace,  of 
Varius  and  Pollio,  had  quickly  passed  away ;  the  Caesar  no 
longer  blandly  countenanced,  with  Maecenas  at  his  side,  the 
social  intercourse  of  the  wisest  and  most  genial  of  the  Ro- 
mans. The  last  years  of  the  age,  familiarly  styled  the  Au- 
gustan, were  singularly  barren  of  the  literary  glories  from 
which  its  celebrity  was  chiefly  derived.  One  by  one  the 
stars  in  its  firmament  had  been  lost  to  the  world :  Virgil  and 
Horace,  Tibullus  and  Propertius,  Varius  and  Plotius  had  long 
since  died;  the  charm  which  the  imagination  of  Livy  had 
thrown  over  the  earlier  annals  of  Rome  had  ceased  to  shine 
on  the  details  of  almost  contemporary  history ;  and  if  the 
flood  of  his  eloquence  still  continued  flowing,  we  can  hardly 
suppose  that  the  stream  was  as  rapid,  as  clear,  and  as  fresh 
as  ever.  And  now  the  youngest  of  its  race  of  poets  seemed 
to  extinguish  in  his  disgrace  the  last  spark  of  its  admired 
brilliancy.  If  the  remembrance  of  their  early  enthusiasm  for 
the  beauty  and  genius  of  Octavius,  the  father  of  his  country 
and  the  saviour  of  the  state,  still  survived  to  temper  the  dis- 
satisfaction of  the  Romans  at  the  gloom  of  his  declining 
years,  no  such  tender  feelings  interfered  to  modify  their  dis- 
gust at  the  pretended  virtues  of  his  consort,  or  the  ill-dis- 
guised haughtiness  of  her  son.  Their  feelings  were  lacerated 
by  the  successive  loss  of  so  many  amiable  princes,  in  each  of 
whom  they  beheld  a  victim  to  the  machinations  of  this  de- 
tested pair ;  they  murmured  at  the  untoward  destiny  of  the 


A.TL  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  265 

still  living  children  of  Agrippa ;  but  they  turned  with  the 
freshness  of  a  hope  which  no  disappointments  could  blight, 
no  evil  auguries  overshadow,  to  the  opening  promise  of  the 
gallant  Germanicus,  the  last  of  the  national  favourites.  A 
spring,  summer,  and  autumn  had  passed  with  nothing  to 
dispel  the  general  dissatisfaction  except  an  occasional  rumour 
of  successes  in  Pannonia,  and  assurances,  often  repeated,  but 
never  yet  fulfilled,  of  speedy  pacification.  At  last,  to  the 
delight  of  the  citizens,  the  young  hero  brought  in  person  the 
news  of  the  final  subjugation  of  the  enemy,  from  which  they 
hoped  for  a  long  relief  from  levies  and  exactions.  The  senate 
decreed  the  honours  of  a  triumph  to  Tiberius,  and  appointed 
two  triumphal  arches  to  be  erected  at  conspicuous  spots  with- 
in the  conquered  territory.  The  triumphal  ornaments  were 
at  the  same  time  granted  to  Germanicus :  he  was  placed  in 
the  rank  of  praetors,  and  invited  to  speak  in  the  senate  next  in 
order  to  the  consulars.1  The  restrictions  of  age  were  relaxed 
in  his  behalf,  that  he  might  attain  the  consulship  without 
delay.  But  the  celebration  of  the  imperial  triumph,  and  the 
jubilee  of  the  Roman  people,  were  frustrated  by  the  disaster 
which  is  now  to  be  related.3 

The  uneasiness  of  the  popular  mind  might  be  taken  as  a 
presentiment  of  the  calamity  which  was  impending.    With- 
in five  days  from  the  restoration  of  tranquillity  Extension  of 
on  the  Save  and  Drave,  the  empire  sustained  a  gove^nSent  be- 
shock  in  the  north,  which,  had  it  happened  but  KWjwandthe 
a  little  sooner,  must  have  torn  from  it  either  of  Elbe- 
its  Rhenish  or  its  Danubian  possessions.    The  countries  be- 
tween the  Rhine  and  Weser,  or  even  the  Elbe,  the  ocean 
and  the  Mayn,  had  been  reduced  by  the  repeated  enterprises 


1  The  triumphal  ornaments,  the  empty  distinction  henceforth  accorded  to 
the  emperor's  successful  lieutenants,  consisted  in  an  ivory  staff  surmounted  by 
the  figure  of  an  eagle,  a  curule  chair  or  stool,  a  golden  crown,  the  triumphal 
mantle,  a  laurelled  statue.  Sacrifices  were  offered,  with  a  supplicatio,  on  the 
occasion,  and  the  victor  was  allowed  to  receive  the  title  of  Imperator. 

a  Dion,  Ivi.  1Y.  Suet.  Tib.  17. :  "  Triumphum  ipse  distulit,  moesta  civi- 
tate  clade  Variana." 


266  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

of  Drusus  and  Tiberius  to  complete  subjection.  When  Ti- 
berius quitted  this  region,  in  the  year  758,  the  tribes  com- 
prised within  these  ample  boundaries  appeared  to  have  sub- 
mitted placidly  to  the  yoke.  It  only  remained,  apparently, 
to  establish  among  them  the  system  of  provincial  administra- 
tion, according  to  the  forms  which  had  proved  so  generally 
efficient  elsewhere.  The  success  indeed  of  the  Roman  arms 
in  this  quarter  had  been  such  as  to  prove  that  they  had  lost 
none  of  their  ancient  temper  in  the  hands  of  the  existing 
generation.  The  legions  had  penetrated  the  whole  country 
in  every  direction ;  the  war-galleys  had  swept  the  coast  and 
stemmed  the  current  of  the  fleetest  rivers  ;  military  posts  had 
been  established  in  proper  localities,  and  their  communica- 
tions secured  by  permanent  roadways.1  The  courage  and 
conduct  of  the  soldiers,  the  firmness  of  the  Romans,  and  the 
devotion  of  the  allies,  had  shown  no  decline,  while  the  means 
of  armament  and  supply  had  been  brought  to  such  perfection, 
that  their  movements  had  been  more  extended,  their  combi- 
nations more  unerring,  than  in  any  previous  campaigns.  Bold 
and  obstinate  as  the  Germans  had  proved  in  their  long  resis- 
tance to  such  well-appointed  adversaries,  the  effect  of  this 
organized  valour  had  been  overwhelming.  By  force  or  per- 
suasion all  the  northern  tribes  seemed  to  be  gained  to  the 
empire.  The  Frisii  and  Chauci  had  merited  the  distinction 
of  admission  to  alliance  with  Rome,  which  knitted  them  more 
firmly  to  her  interests,  by  making  them  objects  of  jealousy 
to  their  less  fortunate  brethren.  The  Batavi,  in  the  island 
between  the  Rhine  and  Waal,  served  with  ardour  as  cavalry 
in  the  Roman  armies.  Their  neighbours  the  Caninefates 
were  subdued.  The  Usipetes  and  Tenctheri  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Rhine  were  overpowered ;  while  the  Bructeri,  the  Che- 

1  Such  were  the  fortresses  of  Aliso  on  the  Lippe,  and  Burchana  (Borkum) 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Ems.  Vestiges  of  Roman  fortifications  are  still  traced  in 
the  range  of  the  Taunus-gebirge  in  Nassau.  Niebuhr  believed  that  remains 
of  the  original  Roman  roads  still  exist  in  the  north  of  Germany,  in  the  wooden, 
causeways  of  great  antiquity  which  crossed  the  marshes  and  heaths  in  that 
quarter.  Rom.  Hist.  v.  lect.  Iviii. 


A.  U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  267 

nisei,  the  Chatti,  and  the  Sigambri  had  only  escaped  this  fate 
by  the  care  with  which  they  had  avoided  a  conflict  with  the  in- 
vaders, who  had  established  themselves  as  conquerors  through- 
out their  territories.  Emigrants  and  colonists  had  followed 
in  the  wake  of  the  legions ;  various  channels  of  commerce 
had  been  opened  with  the  natives,  who  began  to  relax  from 
their  attitude  of  defiance,  and  showed  a  desire  to  imbibe  the 
lessons  of  civilization ;  Germans,  noted  for  their  big  limbs, 
blue  eyes,  and  fair  complexion,  became  conspicuous  among 
the  nations  which  thronged  the  streets  of  Rome ;  and  the 
Sigambrian  women  ministered  to  the  caprice  of  fashion  by 
selling  their  flaxen  locks  to  decorate  the  sallow  brows  of  the 
Italian  matrons.1 

The  vigilance  of  Augustus  seems  for  a  moment  to  have 
slumbered  in  allowing  his  latest  conquest  to  remain  in  an 
anomalous,  and,  as  it  proved,  a  precarious  posi- 

7  \.   ,  *,.          Fancied  seen- 

tion.     There  were  two  ways  in  which,  according  rity  of  the 

/•    ,-1        ..     "  ••  •  ...          Roman  admin- 

to  the  maxims  of  the  time,  such  an  acquisition  istration  in 
might  be  governed.  The  one  was  the  policy  of 
coercion,  exemplified  in  the  case  of  the  Pannonians  and  Dal- 
matians, whom  the  conquerors  sought  to  crush  into  obedience 
by  riveting  on  them  the  weight  of  the  provincial  administra- 
tion, with  its  civil  and  military  governors,  its  judicial  and 
fiscal  intendants,  and  the  whole  apparatus  of  official  tyranny. 
There  was  the  policy  of  severe  exactions,  rigorous  conscrip- 
tions, and  wholesale  confiscations.  We  have  just  witnessed 
the  fearful  result  which  might  follow  from  such  a  system  in 
the  desperate  revolt  which  had  thrown  Rome  into  consterna- 
tion. This,  however,  was  the  method  not  unusually  adopted 
wherever  the  Romans  feared  the  martial  spirit  of  the  con- 
quered ;  and  though,  as  in  Spain,  it  gave  rise  to  repeated  out- 
breaks, it  was  nevertheless  generally  successful,  at  least  in 
the  end.  The  other  was  the  policy  which  Cassar  had  adopted 
in  Gaul.  His  own  views  indeed  were  personal  rather  than 
national ;  he  aimed  at  making  the  Gauls  useful  servants  to 

1  Ovid,  Amor.  I  14.  49. : 

"Nescio  quam  pro  me  laudat  mine  iste  Sigambram." 


268  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  9. 

himself,  rather  than  submissive  subjects  to  Rome.  But  the 
lenity  with  which  he  treated  them,  the  amount  of  freedom  he 
allowed  them,  the  lightness  of  the  tribute  he  imposed  on 
them,  sufficed  to  effect  both  his  own  object  and  that  of  the 
state  he  professed  to  serve.  The  Gauls  continued  faithful 
from  gratitude,  or  at  least  from  contentment,  not  to  Caesar 
only  but  to  Rome  herself.  But  the  Transrhenane  territory 
was  governed  on  neither  of  these  principles.  It  was  neither 
crushed  as  a  province  nor  cherished  as  an  ally ;  certainly  no 
peculiar  harshness  was  exercised  upon  the  Germans.  They 
had  offered  little  opposition  to  Drusus  or  Tiberius ;  if  they 
had  not  voluntarily  submitted,  they  had  at  least  retired  before 
their  advancing  legions.  Some  of  them  had  evinced  a  temper 
more  than  usually  tractable.  The  Romans  felt  themselves 
secure  in  the  heart  of  Germany,  as  they  had  never  felt  in 
Gaul,  Spain,  or  Pannonia.  While  year  by  year  the  procon- 
suls were  waging  interminable  war  against  the  obscure  barba- 
rians of  Moesia  and  Mauretania,  the  Germans,  whose  strength 
and  courage,  and  not  less  their  genius  and  understanding, 
were  especially  vaunted,  seemed  not  only  to  submit  without 
resistance,  but  to  conform  with  unexampled  alacrity  to  the 
ideas  of  the  invader.  Such  was  the  security  of  the  Romans 
that  their  cohorts  were  suffered  to  be  scattered,  through  a 
number  of  petty  posts  far  asunder.  Their  winter  stations 
grew  from  the  concourse  of  new  settlers  to  the  dimension  of 
colonies,  but  without  their  defences.  The  Germans  flocked 
to  the  stated  markets ;  and  though  not  without  a  sense  of 
uneasiness  and  vexation,  seemed  prepared  to  abandon  one  by 
one  every  feature  of  their  native  habits. 

It  was  the  part  of  a  prudent  ruler  to  encourage  this  self- 
abandonment,  but  by  no  means  to  precipitate  it  by  pressure. 
Quintnius  Va-  The  utmost  discretion  was  required  in  the  com- 
deHn°Gh£an~  mander  who  should  succeed  Tiberius,  and  receive 
many.  t^e  subjugated  Germans  from  their  conqueror  to 

instruct  and  civilize.  No  more  important  selection  had  the 
emperor  had  to  make  since  he  appointed  Maecenas  to  the 
government  of  Italy,  or  sent  Agrippa  to  control  the  turbu- 


A.U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  269 

lence  of  the  mob  in  the  city.  And  not  only  was  it  important 
to  choose  the  legate  well ;  it  was  necessary,  moreover,  to 
give  him  distinct  instructions,  and  while  allowing  him  lati- 
tude in  the  choice  of  his  means,  to  prescribe  definitely  to 
him  his  mode  of  treatment.  In  all  these  particulars  Au- 
gustus seems  to  have  failed.  The  prefect  he  selected  was  a 
man  of  no  special  ability ;  as  the  recent  governor  of  the 
tranquil  province  of  Syria,  where  he  had  too  quickly  en- 
riched himself,  he  had  learnt  by  easy  success  to  despise 
both  the  provincial  subject  and  the  imperial  government, 
the  one  for  submitting  to  his  extortions,  the  other  for 
conniving  at  them.1  L.  Quintilius  Varus  was  an  official 
pedant.  Transplanted  to  the  heart  of  Germany,  placed  at 
the  head  of  an  army,  but  without  the  ordinary  machinery 
of  civil  government,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  forcing  the 
formalities  of  the  provincial  administration,  its  tribunals,  its 
police,  and  its  fiscal  charges,  on  people  who  had  hitherto  been 
allowed  to  tax  and  govern  themselves.3  Had  the  emperor 
given  him  specific  instructions  to  this  effect,  he  would  at 
least  have  guarded  the  experiment  by  proper  military  pre- 
cautions. Had  he,  on  the  other  hand,  forbidden  such  an 
experiment  to  be  hazarded,  Varus  would  not  have  ven- 
tured to  disobey.  But  left,  as  it  would  seem,  to  his  own 
caprice  by  the  oversight  of  his  aged  chief,  he  chose  to  dis- 
regard the  usual  habits  of  the  service,  and  pretended  to 
sheathe  the  sword  while  he  imposed  upon  the  Germans  the 
yoke  of  servitude.  While  the  ancients  throw  all  the  blame 
of  what  followed  upon  the  incapacity  of  Varus,  and  some 
moderns  impute  it  rather  to  the  indiscretion  of  Augustus 
himself,  we  shall  be  more  correct  perhaps  in  dividing  it 
between  them. 

Notwithstanding  the  ardour  or  levity  with  which  the 
German  chiefs  had  accepted  service  under  the  foreigner, 
and  the  satisfaction  they  had  felt  in  partaking  of  its  glit- 

1  Dion,  Ivi.  18.   Yell.  ii.  117. :  "Pecunije  quam  non  contemptor  Syria,  cui 
profuerat,  declaravit,  quam  pauper  divitem  ingressus,  dives  pauperem  reliquit." 
5  The  command  of  Varus  in  Germany  dates  from  A.  u.  759. 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  |A.D.  9. 

His  indiscre-      termg  distinctions,  many  doubtless  among  them 

tbTcf/man*      st^  watched   an   opportunity   of  rising  against 

A.  D.  9.          their  masters.      The    precipitation   with  which 

A.  u.  762. 

Varus  threw  off  the  mask  which  concealed  the 
harsher  features  of  Roman  domination  could  not  fail  to  in- 
flame their  thirst  for  independence.  The  tedious  and  intricate 
forms  of  Roman  law  perplexed  and  disgusted  them ;  but 
personal  freedom,  and  exemption  from  blows,  still  more  from 
capital  punishment,  was  the  birthright  of  the  free  German ; 
and  when  a  Roman  official  in  the  reckless  exercise  of  power 
inflicted  dishonour  where  he  meant  no  more  than  a  slight 
admonition,  the  stroke  of  the  lictor's  rod  left  a  rankling 
wound.  Still  the  spirit  of  the  Germans  might  have  been 
gradually  tamed,  had  not  their  own  mutual  jealousies  has- 
tened the  outbreak.  It  was  usual  for  the  ruler  of  a  province 
to  make  a  summer  progress  through  his  dominions,  fixing 
his  camp  and  tribunal  at  various  spots  successively,  to  ac- 
quaint himself  with  his  subjects  and  their  resources,  and 
brandish  over  all  in  turn  the  terrors  of  the  axe  and  rods. 
During  these  excursions  the  troops  which  occupied  a  secure 
and  peaceful  country  were  allowed  for  the  most  part  to  re- 
main in  their  quarters,  the  safety  of  the  proconsul  not  requir- 
ing their  attendance  on  himself.  But  Yarus  was  not  so 
neglectful  of  his  own  security.  He  led  forth  the  three 
legions  under  his  orders ;  and  as  he  advanced  from  place  to 
place  he  was  attended  by  the  chiefs  of  the  country,  who 
either  commanded  auxiliary  cohorts  or  played  the  courtier 
Segestes  and  m  his  prffitorium.  Among  the  most  distinguished 
fhtefc oftke  of  these  were  the  leaders  of  the  Cherusci,  the 
cherusci.  brothers  Segimerus  and  Segestes.  Segimerus 
had  a  son  named  Arminius,  who  had  offended  his  uncle  Se- 
gestes, by  carrying  off  his  daughter.1  They  had  all  enrolled 

1  Of  Arminius,  almost  the  only  German  of  this  time  whom  we  can  invest 
with  a  distinct  personality,  there  will  be  much  to  record  hereafter.  The 
Germans  take  a  pleasure  in  designating  him  as  Hermann,  (Heer-mann),  "  the 
general ;  "  but  this  derivation  does  not  seem  certain  enough  to  induce  me  to 
forego  the  satisfaction  of  attaching  a  proper  name  to  so  distinguished  a  hero. 


A.U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  271 

themselves  in  the  Roman  service ;  Arminius  had  received 
the  citizenship,  and  been  promoted  to  the  equestiian  order. 
But  Segestes  was  much  in  the  proconsul's  confidence,  and 
Arminius,  conscious  of  his  animosity  towards  himself,  might 
apprehend  the  effect  of  his  hostile  representations.  While 
his  father,  his  uncle,  and  a  brother,  who  had  caused  himself 
to  be  adopted  into  a  Roman  house,  all  attached  themselves 
with  sincerity  to  the  party  of  the  foreigners,  Arminius  de- 
voted himself  to  their  overthrow.  He  was  the  favourite  of 
his  countrymen,  not  for  his  bravery  only  but  for  Arminius  in- 
his  conduct :  he  was  both  eloquent  in  speech  and  thf  iiomfnln8t 
prompt  in  action,  qualities  in  which  the  Germans  P°wer- 
were  inferior  to  both  the  Gauls  and  Romans.  He  was  a  man 
of  bold  and  lofty  spirit,  capable  of  imparting  the  enthusiasm 
which  he  felt  himself.  He  intrigued  with  the  chief  men  of 
various  tribes,  and  brought  them  readily  into  his  views.  They 
besieged  the  proconsul  with  demands  for  military  aid  in 
various  quarters,  to  overawe  their  unconquered  neighbours 
or  to  repress  the  outrages  of  banditti.  Varus  was  persuaded 
to  detach  cohorts  and  squadrons  from  his  main  body,  which 
were  speedily  overpowered  and  cut  off.  But  before  these 
disasters  were  known  Segestes  had  detected  and  denounced 
the  conspiracy.  Varus  had  advanced  to  the  Weser,  and  was 
meditating  perhaps  an  incursion  in  the  broad  plains  extend- 
ing to  the  Elbe,  through  which  Tiberius  had  recently  carried 
his  eagles.  At  this  moment  the  enemy,  who  had  laid  their 
toils  in  his  rear,  spread  the  report  of  an  outbreak  in  the  south 
of  the  province,  and  induced  him  to  turn  his  front  in  that 
direction.1  From  the  confluence  of  the  little  stream  of  the 
Werre  with  the  Weser,  or  the  entrance  perhaps  of  the  gorge 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Westphalian  Gates,  he  had  to 
retrace  his  steps  across  a  wild  tract  of  wooded  hills  which 
separates  the  Weser  from  the  sources  of  the  Ems  and  Lippe, 
the  last  offset  from  the  mountains  of  central  Europe,  before 

1  That  this  reported  outbreak  was  in  the  south,  among  the  Chatti,  is  con- 
jectured from  that  being  the  direction  of  the  expedition  of  Germanicus  at  a 
later  period.  Hoeck,  Roem.  Gesch.  \.  2.  96.  foil. 


272  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

they  die  away  in  the  sandy  flats  of  Lower  Germany.  The 
Varus  advan-  general  elevation  of  this  region  is  inconsiderable, 
fores"  ^rreuto-  but  ^s  eminences  are  separated  by  narrow  val- 
burg>  leys,  the  bottoms  of  which  were  choked  with 

morasses,  while  their  summits  were  clothed  with  dense 
forests.1  The  tracks  which  traversed  it,  for  the  Romans  had 
not  taken  the  precaution  of  building  a  permanent  way 
through  it,  were  sufficiently  practicable  in  dry  weather,  but 
with  the  close  of  summer  the  season  of  storms  and  rain  was 
at  hand.  Varus  was  unconscious  of  these  perils.  He  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  marching  in  quest  of  the  reputed 
delinquents.  The  night  before  he  was  to  set  out,  Segestes, 
who  was  at  supper  with  him,  declared  that  the  report  was 
false,  and  that  he  was  falling  into  the  snare  of  traitors  in 
his  own  camp.  He  desired  to  be  kept  in  custody  himself 
till  the  truth  of  his  disclosures  should  be  proved.  But  the 
proconsul  paid  no  regard  to  the  warning.  The  conspirators, 
to  lull  him  into  security,  pretended  to  quarrel  among  them- 
selves, and  flattered  him  by  appealing  to  his  decision  between 
them. 

The  rain  had  set  in  before  the  march  began,  and  the 
advance  of  the  troops  was  from  the  first  impeded  by  the  ele- 
ments. The  hostility  of  the  natives,  no  longer 
tacked  oifhis  disguised,  soon  added  to  their  difficulties.  At 

eat>  this  critical  moment  Varus  had  the  weakness  to 

let  Arminius  and  other  chiefs  quit  the  camp,  under  pretence 
of  bringing  up  reinforcements.  They  quickly  marshalled  the 
swarming  hordes,  and  pressed  the  rear  and  flanks  of  the 
enemy  with  repeated  assaults.  The  proconsul,  still  blind  to 
the  treachery  around  him,  contented  himself  with  summon- 
ing the  disturbers  of  his  repose  before  his  tribunal.  The 

1  The  Teutoburger  and  Lippischer  Wald,  the  Saltus  Teutoburgensis  of 
Tacitus  (Ann.  i.  60.),  extends  N.W.  a  space  of  seventy  or  eighty  miles,  and 
may  be  described  as  a  tract  of  parallel  hills  in  broken  chains  with  flat  marshy 
hollows  between  them,  so  that  in  crossing  them  from  N.E.  to  S.W.,  more 
than  one  stage  was  to  be  traversed,  each  consisting  of  a  level  swamp  with  a 
defile  at  either  end. 


A.U.  762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  273 

answer  to  his  childish  menaces  presently  arrived  in  the  news 
that  the  insurrection  had  spread  through  the  country,  and 
that  the  establishments  of  the  Roman  power  had  been  forced 
in  every  direction.  The  army  was  encumbered  with  quanti- 
ties of  baggage,  besides  women  and  children,  which  it  was 
soon  out  of  its  power  to  protect.  This  ignominious  loss 
served  at  last  to  awaken  Yarus  to  a  sense  of  his  peril.  While 
still  involved  in  the  swamps  and  woods  through  which  he 
was  making  for  the  open  country  to  the  south,  he  felt  the 
necessity  of  striking  directly  westward,  so  as  to  reach  Aliso, 
and  his  communications  with  the  Rhine.  Aliso  lay  but  a 
few  days'  march  to  his  right,  but  the  tracks  of  the  forest 
were  probably  guarded  against  him,  and  he  must  either 
explore  a  more  circuitous  path  or  force  his  way  through 
all  obstacles.  The  carnages  and  remaining  baggage  he 
ordered  to  be  burnt,  and  pushed  hastily  forward.  The 
weather  continued  unpropitious.  The  soil  was  soft  and  slip- 
pery ;  the  ram  rusted  the  men's  spear-heads,  soaked  their 
leathern  accoutrements,  and  swelled  their  wooden  shields  ; 
the  wind  threw  limbs  of  large  trees  across  their  path,  which 
possibly  the  enemy  had  sawn  half  through  beforehand.1  Be- 
fore they  had  pitched  their  first  encampment,  the  Romans 
had  been  roughly  handled  by  the  enemy,  who  now  closed 
upon  them  to  prevent  their  escape.  That  night  they  traced 
their  lines  with  failing  strength  and  spirit.  In  the  morning 
they  staggered  on  with  diminished  numbers,  and  already  they 
had  almost  lost  the  appearance  of  a  legionary  force.  They 
had  emerged,  however,  now  from  the  woods,  and  had  gained 
the  open  upland  of  swamp  and  moor,  which  slopes  from  the 
hill-country  to  the  valleys  of  the  Ems  and  Lippe.  But  the 
enemy  meanwhile  had  increased  in  numbers  and  confidence. 
Redoubling  their  attacks,  they  pressed  the  fugitives  on  every 
side.  The  soldiers  had  no  reliance  on  their  imperator,  and  as 
he  lost  his  control  over  them,  Varus  lost  equally  all  command 


1  Dion,  Ivi.  20.  :   Kal  ret  &xpa.  TUI>  SfvSpwv  Kara6pav6/j.fva  «ol  KarairnrTS- 
fifva  Sicrdpaffffov.     The  explanation  is  a  conjecture  of  Luden's  (Gesch.  Deutsch- 
landt,  i.),  which  is  perhaps  superfluous. 
VOL.  iv.  —  18 


274:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  9. 

over  himself.  Remembering  the  example  of  his  father  and 
and  finally  over-  grandfather,  who,  it  seems,  had  both  put  an  end 
?heTo88dofu!ree  to  their  own  lives,1  he  threw  himself  in  despair 
legkms.  ^  on  njg  swor(j.  go  ^(j  many  of  his  officers.  The 
A.  u.  762.  soldiers,  deprived  of  their  leaders,  were  butchered 
without  organized  resistance.  The  cavalry  escaped  from  the 
field  only  to  be  hunted  down  at  a  distance.  The  Germans 
had  taken  their  measures  well.  Not  more  than  a  few  strag- 
glers escaped  from  the  terrible  destruction.2  In  the  space  of 
three  days,  three  entire  legions,  horse,  foot,  and  auxiliaries, 
were  annihilated ;  their  arms,  stores,  and  accoutrements,  were 
destroyed ;  their  eagles  were  retained  as  trophies.3 

The  incompetence  of  Varus  for  his  post  is  manifest  from 

his  having  left  no  reserve  at  Aliso.    We  have  seen  how, 

under  circumstances  nearly  similar,  the  remnant 

A  small  rem-          ,.    ,       -  ,,   ~  ..    ,          , 

nant  escape  to    of  the  legions  of  Crassus  was  saved  by  the  ar- 

the  Rhine.  .      -,        /.  •       • ,  j       •     M  •  j 

rival  of  succours  in  its  rear,  and  similar  aid 
should  have  now  too  been  at  hand.  But  the  triumph  of  the 
Germans  was  secure.  They  could  afford  time  to  gloat  over 
their  trophies,  to  slaughter  their  captives  on  altars  erected  in 
the  woods,  with  every  circumstance  of  cruelty  and  derision, 
and  to  search  for  the  body  of  Varus,  whose  head  they  sent 
to  Maroboduus,  as  an  incentive  to  rise  against  the  common 
enemy.  Aliso,  which  was  held  by  a  handful  of  men,  together 
with  the  few  fugitives  from  the  bloody  field,  was  invested 
with  overwhelming  numbers ;  but  the  Germans  had  not  the 
means  of  conducting  a  siege.  The  Romans  were  soon  pressed 
with  hunger ;  but  they  deceived  the  enemy  by  a  stratagem, 
and  threw  him  for  a  moment  off  his  guard,  by  which  they 
profited  to  sally  from  their  entrenchments  and  make  a  rush 
for  the  Rhine.  The  temptation  of  booty  diverted  the  victors 

1  VelL  ii.  119.    The  occasions  are  not  mentioned. 

*  There  is  a  gap  in  the  22nd  chapter  of  Dion,  which  is  to  be  supplied  from 
Zonaras,  x.  37. 

'  Florus,  iv.  12.,  says  that  one  of  the  three  eagles  was  saved :  but  we  read 
of  the  recovery  of  two  in  Tacitus,  Ann.  i.  60.  ii.  25.,  and  of  the  third  in  Dion, 
Ix.  8. 


A.U.762.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  275 

from  the  pursuit,  and  thus  the  last  fragment  of  the  Roman 
power  in  Germany  was  saved  from  the  general  wreck.1 

Terrible  as  was  the  loss  of  so  many  officers  and  so  fine  an 
army,  with  the  destruction  of  flourishing  settlements,  and  the 
slaughter  of  multitudes  of  citizens  and  allies,  the 
Romans  on  the  Rhine  had  no  time  for  mourning,  due" of  Augus- 
The  shout  of  triumph  on  the  one  bank  was  sure 
to  find  an  echo  on  the  other ;  the  victory  of  Arminius  might 
be  expected  to  raise  a  general  revolt  both  of  Germans  and 
Gauls  within  the  Gaulish  provinces.  The  energy  of  Aspre- 
nas,  who  commanded  two  legions  in  this  quarter,  averted  this 
anticipated  disaster.  Flying  to  the  river  bank,  and  receiving 
with  open  arms  the  straggling  fugitives  from  Aliso,  he  as- 
sumed so  bold  an  attitude  as  to  daunt  both  the  Germans  in  his 
front  and  the  Gauls  behind  him.  Arminius  contented  him- 
self with  efikcing  from  his  own  soil  the  traces  of  Roman  domi- 
nation ;  but  he  met  with  no  encouragement  to  cross  the  bor- 
der, nor  did  Maroboduus  respond  to  his  summons  by  arming. 
This  supineness  saved  the  Romans.  The  news  of  the  disaster 
roused  Augustus  once  more  to  energetic  action.  Alone,  or  at 
least  supported  only  by  his  son  Tiberius,  he  manfully  con- 
fronted the  danger,  and  prepared  to  overcome  it.  He  caused 
the  city  to  be  patrolled  by  guards,  or  placed  it,  as  we  should 
say,  in  a  state  of  siege,  as  a  precaution  against  domestic 
disturbances.  He  directed  the  prefects  throughout  the 
provinces  to  retain  their  imperium,  lest  a  change  of  admin- 
istration might  shake  in  any  quarter  the  tottering  fabric  of 
the  empire.  At  the  same  time  he  sought  to  reassure  the 
citizens  by  vowing  solemn  games  to  Jupiter  for  the  public 
security,  an  act  of  faith  such  as  was  deemed  to  have  protected 

1  Frontinus,  Strateg.  iv.  14.  Aliso  was  probably  destroyed..  It  is  one  of 
the  very  few  historical  stations  of  the  Roman  armies  which  it  is  impossible  to 
identify  with  any  modern  locality.  Roman  remains  have  been  found  in  some 
spots  of  this  neighbourhood,  particularly,  it  is  said,  at  Elsen,  a  small  village 
on  the  Lippe  near  Paderborn.  I  should  be  inclined,  however,  to  look  for  it  a 
good  deal  nearer  to  the  Rhine,  and  Hamm  has  been  already  mentioned  as  a 
not  improbable  locality. 


276  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  10. 

the  state  from  the  assault  of  the  Cimbri  and  the  Marsi.1  The 
citizens,  however,  seem  for  the  most  part  to  have  been  sunk 
in  the  profoundest  apathy.  They  had  already  ceased  to  feel 
either  for  the  successes  or  the  disasters  of  the  chiefs  who 
had  usurped  all  the  pleasures  as  well  as  the  pains  of  sove- 
reignty. They  hesitated  to  inscribe  their  names  on  the  roll 
for  military  service,  and  the  emperor  was  forced  to  stimulate 
their  patriotism  by  fines,  and  even  by  threats  of  capital  punish- 
ment. The  levies  which  he  was  enabled  to  raise  by  ballot 
from  the  veterans  and  freedmen,  were  sent  forward  as  fast  as 
they  could  be  collected.  Yet  it  was  not  without  some  mis- 
givings that  Rome  saw  herself  thus  denuded  of  defenders. 
Such  was  the  panic  of  the  government  that  even  the  handful 
of  Gauls  and  Germans  residing  within  the  walls  caused  it 
grave  disquietude.  Some  squadrons  of  these  foreign  auxilia- 
ries had  been  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  the  imperial  body- 
guard. These  were  all  now  disarmed  and  dismissed  from  the 
city,  while  such  as  seemed  most  obnoxious  to  suspicion  were 
removed  to  the  state  prisons.2 

The  year  763  opened  in  gloom  and  amidst  all  the  bustle 
of  these  extraordinary  preparations.  On  the  16th  of  January, 
Tiberias  goes  Tiberius  dedicated  a  temple  of  Concord,  inscri- 
to  IA  eDRione'  *>ing  on  its  front  the  names  of  himself  and  his 
A.U.  763.  brother  Drusus,  an  act  which  the  citizens  may 
have  construed  as  a  pledge  of  his  parental  care  for  Germani- 
cus.*  In  the  course  of  the  spring  he  reached  himself  the  head 
quarters  on  the  Rhine.  Even  in  Gaul  some  symptoms  of  in- 
subordination had  manifested  themselves,  but  these  Tiberius 
quelled  as  he  advanced.  It  was  a  work  of  time  to  replace 
the  material  of  war  which  had  been  annihilated  in  the  late 

1  Suet.  Oct.  23. :  "  Vovit  et  magnos  ludos  Jovi  Opt  Max.  si  respublica  in 
meliorem  statum  vertisset" 

*  Dion,  Ivi.  23.  Suet  Oct.  49. :  "  Dimissa  Germanorum  rnanu  quam  usque 
ad  cladem  Yarianam  inter  armigeros  circum  se  habuerat" 

*  Kalend.  Pramest.  (Orelli,  Inscrip.  ii.  383.)  "  xvii.  Kal.  Febr.  Concordiae 
Augustae  sedes  dedicata  est  P.  Dolabella  C.  Silano  cos."    Comp.  Dion,  Ivi.  25. 
Concordia  Augusta  may  refer  to  the  happy  harmony  now  established  between  the 
members  of  the  imperial  family,  and  between  the  various  orders  of  citizens  also. 


A.  U.  763.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  277 

disaster;  the  new  levies  required  training,  the  old  soldiers 
were  discouraged,  and  could  hardly  be  trusted  in  the  field. 
The  Germans,  on  their  part,  did  not  venture  on  aggression, 
and  the  year  passed  without  hostile  movements  on  either  side. 
With  the  commencement,  however,  of  the  following  year 
the  Roman  equipments  were  complete,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  adopt  offensive  operations,  and  convince  the  Bloodless  cam- 
enemy  that  the  spirit  of  the  empire  was  not  ffln0^6" 
cowed  by  the  blow  it  had  sustained.  Gennani-  ma°yj,  n 
cus  was  in  the  camp  with  his  uncle,  burning  with  A- v- 764- 
youthful  ardour  for  revenge  and  glory.  It  was  well  for  his 
future  distinction  that  he  was  required  under  Tiberius  to 
temper  courage  with  prudence,  and  learn  the  art,  most  diffi- 
cult to  a  young  commander,  of  sparing  his  own  men,  and 
economizing  his  resources.  We  have  admired  more  than 
once  the  breadth  and  boldness  of  plan  which  distinguished 
the  campaigns  of  Tiberius,  though  his  operations  were  always 
conducted  with  caution,  and  he  never  risked  defeat  by  pre- 
sumptuous temerity.  But  now  his  army  was  not  perhaps 
thoroughly  to  be  relied  on  ;  a  single  check  might  completely 
demoralize  it,  and  it  was  the  last  force  the  state  could  send 
into  the  field.  The  excessive  care  and  anxiety  he  now  showed 
in  his  preparations,  limiting  the  amount  of  baggage,  enforcing 
the  strictest  discipline,  exercising  the  utmost  personal  activity 
and  vigilance,  yet  seeking  constantly  the  support  of  councils 
of  war,  proves  how  deeply  he  felt  the  gravity  of  the  occasion. 
With  so  large  a  province  to  recover,  so  many  nations  to 
reduce,  so  great  a  disaster  to  avenge,  he  confined  himself  to 
ravaging  a  few  fields  and  burning  a  few  habitations,  in  which 
he  lost  not  a  man.1  The  Germans,  on  their  part,  were  not 
seduced  into  rashness  by  sudden  success.  They  declined  to 
meet  the  invader  in  the  field,  while  he  abstained  from  attack- 
ing them  in  their  strongholds.  After  traversing  the  open 
country,  for  a  few  weeks  perhaps,  in  various  directions,  Ti- 

1  Comp.  Veil.  120.  Suet.  Tiber.  18,  19.  This  writer  observes  particular- 
ly, "  semper  alias  sui  arbitrii,  contentusque  se  uno,  tune  prseter  consuetudinem 
cum  pluribus  de  belli  ratione  communicavit." 


278  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  12. 

berius  withdrew  slowly  behind  the  Rhine,  only  careful  to 
secure  his  retreat  from  interruption.  Tiberius  had  already 
earned  a  triumph  for  his  victories  in  Pannonia ;  he  forfeited 
it  by  no  misadventure  in  Germany.  On  his  return  to  Rome 
A  D  12  he  was  at  last  enabled  to  celebrate  the  solemnity 
A.  u.  766.  ^hich  had  been  so  long  delayed.1  The  citizens, 
assured  that  their  arms  had  penetrated  again  into  the  recesses 
of  the  formidable  North,  and  that  eveiy  foe  had  fled  before 
them,  were  satisfied  with  this  new  proof  of  their  reputed 
invincibility,  while  the  conqueror  himself  was  doubtless  well 
aware  how  much  their  resources  for  conquest  were  really 
exhausted.  The  Romans  had  recovered  the  fame  of  superi- 
ority, but  the  actual  loss  they  had  sustained  could  not  be 
replaced  without  some  years  of  repose.  The  frontiers  of  the 
empire,  as  it  seemed  to  the  eyes  of  statesmen,  had  perma- 
nently receded  to  the  Rhine.2  The  aged  emperor,  after  the 
immediate  necessity  for  action  had  passed,  sank  into  a  state  of 
nervous  despondency.  For  many  months  after  the  news  of 
the  Varian  massacre  he  allowed  his  hair  and  beard  to  grow 
untrimmed,  and  was  even  known  to  dash  his  head  against  his 
chamber  walls,  exclaiming  with  frantic  impatience,  Varus, 
Varus,  restore  me  my  legions  !  To  the  end  of  his  days  he 
continued  to  observe  with  solemn  mourning  the  anniversary 
of  that  fatal  disaster.3 

We  are  now  drawing  to  the  close  of  the  long  domina- 
tion of  the  second  Caesar,  the  splendour  of  which,  though 
clouded  towards  its  setting,  was  never  wholly  obscured. 
The  year  765  opened  auspiciously  for  the  emperor  with 
the  triumph  of  Tiberius  and  the  consulship  of  the  brave 
Germanicus,  who  was  perhaps  the  secret  object  of  his  pride, 

1  Suet.  Tiber.  20. :  "  Tiberius  a  Germania  in  urbem  post  biennium  regres- 
sus,  triumphum  egit."    The  triumph  took  place  on  the  16th  January,  Kalend. 
Prcenest.  (Orelli,  ii.  382.)    Fischer,  in  Ann.  765.     Germanicus  was  this  year 
consul. 

2  Florus,  iv.  12. :  "  Hac  clade  factum,  ut  imperium,  quod  hi  litore  Oce.ani 
non  steterat,  in  ripa  fluminis  Rheni  staret."    Possibly  Tacitus  alludes  in  Ann. 
i.  38.  "  limes  a  Tiberio  coeptus,"  to  some  outposts  that  were  still  retained  be- 
yond that  river.  8  Suet.  Oct.  23. 


A.  U.  765.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  279 

and  on  whom  the  people  undoubtedly  rested  their  best  hopes 
for  the  future.  Great  we  may  believe  was  the  satisfaction, 
both  in  the  palace  and  the  city,  when,  later  in  the  year,  the 
union  of  this  young  hero  with  Agrippa's  daugh-  Augustus,  in 
ter,  Agrippina,  produced  a  son  to  inherit,  as  pea°s1eMeinap" 
might  be  fondly  anticipated,  the  virtues  of  his  Publlc- 
progenitors  on  either  side.1  The  prsenomen  of  Caius,  which 
was  bestowed  upon  him,  unknown  as  it  was  to  the  branch  of 
the  Claudii  from  which  he  was  lineally  descended,  might 
serve  to  remind  the  emperor  of  the  favourite  grandson  he 
had  lately  lost,  while  it  would  recal  to  the  people  the  remem- 
brance of  the  great  dictator,  the  conqueror  of  the  Gauls,  the 
destroyer  of  the  Sullan  oligarchy.  With  the  politic  courtesy 
which  rarely  abandoned  him,  Augustus  addressed  a  letter  to 
the  senate,  in  which  he  recommended  Germanicus  to  its  favour 
and  protection,  while  at  the  same  time  he  recommended  the 
senate  itself  to  the  respectful  care  of  Tiberius.  This  letter 
he  excused  himself  from  reciting  in  person  on  the  plea  of 
increasing  debility :  it  was  read  for  him  by  Germanicus  from 
the  consul's  chair.  Failing  as  he  now  was  in  strength  and 
spirits,  he  desired  his  kind  friends,  the  senators  and  knights 
of  Rome,  no  longer  to  incommode  him  by  their  officious 
salutations  in  the  curia  and  the  streets,  in  his  own  hall  and 
private  apartments,  and  to  abstain  from  inviting  him  to  their 
entertainments,  which  he  had  hitherto  sedulously  attended. 
He  was  gradually  withdrawing  himself  from  the  most  irksome 
obligations  of  his  station,  and  relaxing  the  cords  which  bound 
the  burden  of  his  honours  upon  him.  He  was  more  anxious, 
however,  to  relieve  himself  from  the  pains  or  responsibilities 
of  authority  than  to  surrender  its  substance.  AD  13 
Though  he  required  the  senate  to  renew  the  A- c- 766- 
tribunitian  power  of  Tiberius,  and  at  the  same  time  to  decree 
him  the  proconsulate  throughout  the  provinces,  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  accept  for  himself  in  the  year  766  a  fifth  decennial 
term  of  the  Imperium.  To  his  privy  council,  now  raised  from 

1  Caius  Germanicus,  known  afterwards  by  his  nickname  of  Caligula,  was 
born  on  the  30th  of  September,  A.  u.  765,  at  Antium.     Suet.  Calig.  8. 


280  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.13. 

the  number  of  fifteen  to  twenty,  and  always  embracing 
among  its  members  the  consuls  actual  and  designate,  to- 
gether with  other  high  magistrates,  he  reserved  the  right 
of  discussing  all  state  affairs,  and  deciding  them  without 
recurring  to  the  senate  itself.  He  had  come  but  rarely 
of  late  into  the  curia :  he  now  relinquished  his  attendance 
there  altogether,  and  conducted  his  deliberations  under  his 
own  roof,  and  frequently  in  his  bed-chamber.  It  was  only 
when  he  wanted  the  confirmation  of  some  unpalatable  mea- 
sure, such  as  his  tax  on  successions,  that  he  required  the  senate 
to  set  to  it  the  seal  of  its  collective  authority.1 

This  communication  of  proconsular  power  abroad  could 
hardly  admit  of  any  other  interpretation  than  that  the  son 
Tiberius  be-  was  thereby  formally  associated  in  the  empire 
of?toBauccer8°d  with  his  father.  The  only  question  that  now 
8lon-  remained  for  solution  was  whether  the  emperor 

would  designate  others  to  share  the  succession  in  like  man- 
ner with  Tiberius  hereafter.  On  this  point  the  jealousy  of 
Livia  and  her  son's  despondent  apprehensions  could  not  even 
yet  be  tranquillized.  In  vain  did  the  expressions  which 
dropped  from  Augustus  himself  throughout  his  intercourse 
with  Tiberius  assure  him  of  his  esteem  and  affection.  "Whether 
earnest  or  playful,  his  letters  continued  always  to  abound  in 
tokens  of  admiration.  No  one,  they  declared,  could  have  con- 
ducted the  late  campaign  with  more  consummate  prudence. 
Tiberius  alone,  they  said,  had  restored  the  public  weal,  not 
by  delay,  as  Fabius  of  old,  but  by  wariness  and  discretion.2 
No  matter  whether  or  not  the  aged  emperor  were  well,  pro- 
vided only  the  brave  Tiberius  were  not  ill.  Such  was  the 
flattering  tenor  of  every  imperial  epistle.  Nevertheless 

1  Dion,  Ivi.  28.  The  council  of  fifteen  had  been  renewed  every  six 
months ;  the  twenty  now  retained  their  office  for  a  year.  Augustus,  we  see, 
was  still  far  from  confining  the  supervision  of  affairs  to  a  mere  cabinet.  To 
the  last  he  was  not  unfaithful  to  the  principle,  "  quo  plures  partem  adminis- 
trandae  reipublicse  caperent."  Suet.  Oct.  37. 

a  Quoting  the  well-known  line  of  Ennius,  "TJnus  homo  nobis  cunctando 
restituit  rem,"  Augustus  altered  cunctando  to  vigilando. 


A.U.  766.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  281 

rumours  were  not  wanting  that  in  conversation  with  his 
nearest  associates,  Augustus  had  used  very  different  lan- 
guage ;  that  he  had  expressed  his  fears,  not  indeed  of  the 
ability,  but  of  the  temper  of  his  future  successor ;  that  he  had 
muttered  with  a  sigh,  Alas  for  my  people  !  to  be  ground  be- 
tween jaws  so  slow  and  so  relentless.1  On  the  other  hand,  it 
was  insinuated  by  some  that  he  was  induced  to  leave  the 
conduct  of  affairs  to  Tiberius,  that  the  contrast  he  anticipated 
between  his  own  rule  and  his  successor's  might  make  his  end 
the  more  generally  regretted.2  He  had  been  heard  to  murmur 
at  the  moroseness  of  his  stepson's  temper,  and  been  seen 
to  check  the  cheerful  flow  of  his  own  spirits  in  company, 
when  the  gloomy  shadow  of  Tiberius  darkened  his  thres- 
hold.3 

Agrippa  Postumus  still  lingered  in  banishment.  It  was 
possible  that,  at  the  last  moment,  his  grandfather's  heart 
might  relent  towards  him.  If  this  distrust  of  Reported  visit 
his  stepson  was  truly  imputed  to  him,  Augustus  Agrfpf  alnban- 
hoped  to  qualify  the  evil  by  making  Agrippa  his  ishment- 
associate  in  the  imperial  inheritance.  Under  the  shades  of 
despotism  whatever  men  begin  to  think  likely  to  be  done,  is 
straightway  reported  to  have  actually  been  done.  Some 
writers  mentioned  it  only  as  a  rumour,  others  stated  it  as  a 
fact, — at  least  it  was  very  generally  believed, — that  Augustus 
had  visited  his  grandson  in  exile.4  Adopting  every  precau- 
tion to  baffle  observation,  and  attended,  it  was  said,  by  a  few 
trusty  servants  and  with  Maximus  as  his  only  confidant,  he 
had  quitted  the  shore  of  Italy.  The  interview  had  been 
marked  by  emotion  and  tears  on  either  side.  Thus  much,  it 
was  added,  was  revealed  by  Maximus  to  his  wife  Marcia,  by 

1  Suet.  Tib.  21. :  "Miserum  pop.  Rom.,  qui  sub  tarn  lentis  maxillis  erit." 
The  metaphor  is  taken  from  the  circus.    Suetonius  elsewhere  characterizes  the 
disposition  of  Tiberius  as  "  saevam  et  lentam." 

2  Tac.  Ann.  i.  10. ;  Suet.  /.  c. 

3  Suet.  /.  c.    But  even  Suetonius  gives  no  countenance  to  these  rumours. 

4  Comp.  Tac.  Ann.  i.  5.,  with  Dion,  Ivi.  30.,  and  with  Plutarch  (de  Garrul. 
11.),  who  tells  the  story  still  more  dramatically. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  14, 

Marcia  to  Livia.  The  emperor  discovered  his  companion's 
indiscretion,  and  when  shortly  afterwards  Maximus  was  found 
dead  under  suspicious  circumstances,  his  wife  was  heard  to 
accuse  herself  as  the  cause  of  his  decease.  Such  rumours 
soon  acquired  consistency  in  the  mouths  of  the  citizens,  and 
became  repeated  as  history  at  a  later  period.  But  Ovid, 
in  one  of  his  desponding  letters  from  the  Euxine,  drops  a 
similar  accusation  against  himself,  as  in  some  mysterious  way 
the  unworthy  means  of  his  friend's  disaster.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  the  exile  of  Ovid  was  nearly  simultaneous 
with  that  of  Agrippa,  and  hence  some  colour  has  been  given 
to  the  idea  that  a  political  connexion  existed  between  them.1 
The  mystery  which  attached  to  the  end  of  so  distinguished  a 
personage  shows  at  least  the  irritable  state  of  the  public  mind 
at  this  period.  Its  morbid  feelings  were  displayed  in  a  cra- 
ving for  excitement  which  overcame  every  restraint.  The  pas- 
sion of  men  of  birth  and  figure  to  encounter  the  perils  of  the 
arena  for  a  round  of  popular  applause  rose  higher  than  ever ; 
and  Augustus,  wearied  and  disgusted,  relaxed  at  last  the 
opposition  he  had  so  vigorously  maintained  to  the  practice." 

Had  Augustus,  indeed,  survived  some  years  longer,  a 

more  formidable  rival  to  Livia's  son  than  Agrippa  would 

have  arisen  in  Gennanicus.    Even  now,  since  the 

The  census  of      ,  „  „.,  ,  . 

the  year  767.  ,last  campaign  oi  Tiberius,  the  most  important 
frontier  of  the  empire  was  intrusted  to  his  de- 
fence ;  his  conspicuous  ability,  and  the  popularity  he  earned 
or  inherited,  would  doubtless  have  recommended  him  to  the 
emperor  for  still  stronger  tokens  of  confidence.3  But  the  old 
man,  now  reaching  the  completion  of  his  seventy-sixth  year, 

1  Ovid,  Ex  Pont.  iv.  6.  11.: 

"  Occidis  ante  preces,  causamque  ego,  Maxime,  mortis, 
Nee  fueram  tanti,  me  reor  esse  tuae." 

2  Dion,  Ivi.  25. :  Kai  rots  lirirtvyiv,  i>  KO!  Savfuifffttv  &t>  TIJ,  /xovojtax*"' 
fTTfrpdirri '  aXnov  5e  '6n  tv  o\iyupia  -rives  T}]V  arifj.iav  TJ\V  IT?  a.vT&>  twiKfi/jifi>riv 
f-jToiouvTO  ....  Kal  ot/Ta>y  avrl  rrjy  orjjui'as  6a.va.-rov  u><$>\'iffKavov. 

8  Suet.  Calig.  8. :    "  Germanicum  exacto  consulatu  in  Galliam  missum ;" 
therefore  at  the  commencement  of  the  year  766. 


A.U.  767.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  283 

could  not  but  feel  his  end  approaching.  His  health,  which  in 
his  youth  had  required  constant  care  and  unusual  precautions, 
had  certainly  become  more  confirmed  in  the  latter  half  of  his 
life  ;  nevertheless  he  was  subject  to  harassing  infirmities,  and 
his  strength  failed  under  the  weight  of  suffering  no  less  than 
of  years.1  He  was  anxious  to  leave  his  great  work  complete, 
as  far  as  human  hands  could  make  it  so,  and  to  retire  from 
the  scene  with  the  assurance  that  he  had  provided  for  the 
future.  As  an  appropriate  close  to  his  career  he  proposed 
to  hold  now  a  census  of  the  people,  the  third  he  had  under- 
taken since  his  accession  to  power,  in  order  that  the  exact 
state  of  the  commonwealth,  its  wealth  and  population,  at  the 
moment  of  his  quitting  it,  might  be  certified  to  the  latest  pos- 
terity. So  much,  indeed,  was  he  impressed  with  the  belief 
that  his  decease  was  at  hand,  that  on  the  occurrence  of  an 
unlucky  omen,  which  was  thought  to  portend  that  he  would 
not  survive  an  hundred  days,  he  desisted  from  the  work  him- 
self, leaving  it  to  be  completed  by  Tiberius,  lest  it  should 
suffer  an  unlucky  interruption  by  his  death. 

The  census,  however,  was  completed,  and  the  lustrum 
closed,  before  the  middle  of  767,  and  Augustus  still  lived. 
He  employed  the  next  few  months  in  compiling  a  succinct 


1  Suetonius,  Oct.  80-83.  gives  some  curious  details  of  the  habits  of  a 
Roman  valetudinarian.  Weakness  of  the  hams  and  thighs  was  relieved  by 
bandages  and  splints ;  the  forefinger  of  his  right  hand,  being  liable  to  numb- 
ness, was  encased,  when  he  wrote,  in  horn.  In  the  winter  he  wore  four 
under-garments  and  a  thick  gown  over  them,  besides  guarding  the  chest  with 
wool ;  the  legs  were  also  wrapped  up.  In  the  summer  he  slept  in  a  chamber 
with  open  doors,  often  under  an  open  colonnade,  with  fountains  of  water  play- 
ing beside  him,  and  a  slave  to  fan  him.  He  always,  even  in  winter,  wore  a 
covering  for  the  head  when  exposed  to  the  sun.  His  journeys  were  made  in 
a  litter,  generally  at  night,  slowly  and  by  short  stages,  taking  two  days  to 
reach  Tibur  or  Prgerieste,  at  the  distance  of  fifteen  or  twenty  miles.  He  pre- 
ferred going  by  sea  when  possible.  His  precautions  for  preserving  his  health 
were  chiefly,  refraining  from  much  bathing,  anointing  frequently,  and  sweat- 
ing himself  before  a  fire.  For  exercise,  instead  of  the  athletic  sports  of  the 
palasstra,  he  was  content  with  gentle  riding  and  walking,  or  swinging  his  limbs 
in  sitting.  His  amusements  were  the  languid  excitement  of  fishing,  or  play- 
ing dice  with  children. 


num- 


284  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  14. 

Augustus  memorial  of  his  public  acts,  to  be  preserved  in 
o?h7s8a\tiocns?  the  public  archives,  a  truly  imperial  work,  and 
oyTae.n'  probably  unique  in  its  kind.  The  archives  of 
Rome  have  long  mouldered  in  the  dust,  but  a 
ruined  wall  in  a  remote  corner  of  her  empire,  engraved  with 
this  precious  document,  has  been  faithful  to  its  trust  for 
eighteen  hundred  years,  and  still  presents  us  with  one  of  the 
most  curious  records  of  antiquity.  The  inscription,  which 
may  still  be  read  in  the  pronaos  of  a  temple  at  Ancyra,  attests 
the  energy,  sagacity,  and  fortune  of  the  second  Caesar  in  a 
detailed  register  of  all  his  public  undertakings  through  a 
period  of  fifty-eight  years.1  Commencing  with  his  nine- 
teenth year,  it  bears  witness  to  his  filial  piety  in  prosecuting 
his  father's  murderers  ;  it  touches  lightly  on  the  proscriptions, 
and  vaunts  the  unanimity  of  all  good  citizens  in  his  favour, 
when  500,000  Romans  arrayed  themselves  under  the  banner 
of  the  triumvir.  It  records  his  assignment  of  lands  to  the 
veterans,  and  the  triumphs  and  ovations  decreed  him  by  the 
senate.  It  signalizes  his  prudence  in  civil  affairs,  in  revising 
the  senate,  in  multiplying  the  patricians,  and  in  thrice  per- 
forming the  lustrum  of  the  people.  It  enumerates  the  magis- 
tracies and  priesthoods  conferred  upon  him,  and  boasts  of  his 
three  times  closing  the  temple  of  Janus.  His  liberality  is 
commemorated  in  his  various  largesses  both  of  corn  and 
money,  and  the  contribiitions  he  made  from  his  private  treas- 


1  The  celebrated  Monumentum  Ancyranum  is  a  Latin  inscription  in  paral- 
lel columns,  covering  the  walls  of  the  pronaos,  or  exterior  porch,  of  a  Temple 
of  Augustus  at  Ancyra.  It"  was  first  copied  by  Busbequius  in  1544,  and  has 
been  transcribed  often  since :  the  traces  of  the  letters  have  become  fainter, 
but  the  greater  care  of  recent  explorers  has  more  than  balanced  this  misfor- 
tune. In  the  present  century  some  fragments  of  the  Greek  text  of  the  same 
inscription  have  been  discovered  at  Apollonia  in  Pisidia,  which  have  served  to 
supply  some  defects  and  verify  some  corrections.  See  the  history  of  the 
Monumentum  in  Egger,  Historiens  cTAuguste,  p.  412.  foil.  The  record  pur- 
ports to  be  a  copy  from  the  original  statement  of  Augustus  himself,  engraved 
on  two  brazen  pillars  at  Rome :  "  Rerum  gestarum  divi  Augusti ex- 
emplar subjectum."  It  runs  throughout  in  the  first  person :  "  Annos  undevi- 
ginti  natus  exercitum  private  consilio  et  privata  impensa  comparavi,"  &c. 


A.U.  767.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  285 

ures  to  relieve  the  burdens  of  his  subjects.  His  magnificence 
is  made  to  appear  in  the  temples  and  public  structures  he 
built  or  caused  to  be  built ;  in  his  halls  and  forums,  his  colon- 
nades and  aqueducts ;  nor  less  in  the  glorious  spectacles  he 
exhibited,  and  the  multitude  of  beasts  he  hunted  in  the  circus. 
The  patriotism  of  Octavius  shone  conspicuously  in  the  over- 
throw of  the  pirate  Sextus,  with  his  crew  of  fugitive  slaves. 
Italy,  it  was  added,  swore  allegiance  to  him  of  her  own  ac- 
cord, and  every  province  in  succession  followed  her  example. 
Under  his  auspices  the  empire  had  reached  the  Elbe,  a  Roman 
fleet  had  navigated  the  Northern  Ocean,  the  Pannonians  and 
Ulyrians  had  been  reduced,  the  Cimbric  Chersonese  had 
sought  his  friendship  and  alliance.  No  nation  had  been 
attacked  by  him  without  provocation.  He  had  added  Egypt 
to  the  dominions  of  Rome  ;  Armenia,  with  dignified  modera- 
tion, he  had  refrained  from  adding.  He  had  planted  Roman 
colonies  in  every  province.  Finally,  he  had  recovered  from 
the  Parthians  the  captured  standards  of  Crassus.  For  all 
these  merits,  and  others  not  less  particularly  enumerated,  he 
had  been  honoured  with  the  laurel  wreath  and  the  civic 
crown ;  he  had  received  from  the  senate  the  title  of  Au- 
gustus, and  been  hailed  by  acclamation  as  the  father  of  his 
country. 

Such  are  the  most  interesting  statements  of  this  extraordi- 
nary document ;  but  to  judge  of  the  marvellous  sobriety  and 
dignity  of  its  tone,  the  suppressed  anticipation  Lagt  days  of 
of  immortal  glory  which  it  discovers,  the  reader  Au8U8tn8- 
must  refer  to  the  work  itself.  Certainly,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  the  merits  of  Augustus,  no  deed  of  his  life  became 
him  so  well  as  the  preparation  he  made  for  quitting  it.  The 
grave  satisfaction  he  exhibits  shows  in  a  wonderful  manner 
the  triumph  in  the  mind  of  the  Roman  of  the  citizen  over 
the  man.  For  if  in  public  affairs  his  career  had  been  emi- 
nently prosperous,  and  a  vast  ambition  had  been  gorged  with 
unexampled  gratification,  not  the  less  had  his  latter  years 
been  embittered  beyond  the  ordinary  measure  of  humanity, 
by  private  chagrins  and  disappointments.  The  fortune  of 


286  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  14. 

Augustus,  proverbial  as  it  became,  related  only  to  the  one 
side  of  his  history ;  the  other  served  not  less  to  point  a  moral, 
and  betray  the  vanity  of  all  earthly  splendour  and  success.1 
It  is  important  to  notice  these  indications  of  the  calmness 
with  which  Augustus  contemplated  the  approach  of  death, 
and  the  preparation  he  made  to  meet  it,  for  the  estimate 
they  enable  us  to  form  of  the  reports  which  ascribed  it  to 
the  secret  machinations  of  Livia.  Such  foul  surmises  obtain 
circulation  but  too  commonly  on  the  demise  of  an  autocrat ; 
engendered  in  darkness,  it  is  generally  impossible  to  trace 
their  sources,  or  pronounce  on  their  authenticity.  But  in 
the  instance  before  us  our  means  of  judging  are  fortunately 
more  satisfactory.  Tiberius,  after  completing  the  lustrum, 
prepared  to  resume  the  command  in  Illyricum,  where  the 
attitude  of  the  enemy,  or  rather,  perhaps,  of  the  legions  them- 
selves, might  cause  some  uneasiness.  On  his  quitting  the 
city  in  midsummer,  the  emperor,  who  generally  spent  the  hot 
season  in  the  cool  retreat  of  Campania,  proposed  to  accom- 
pany him  towards  the  Apulian  coast.  The  Ca3sars  proceeded 
leisurely  together,  halting  at  various  spots  on  their  route,  and 
showing  themselves  with  good-humoured  condescension  to 
the  inhabitants.  But  at  Astura,  Augustus  contracted  a  dy- 
sentery, from  incautious  exposure  to  the  night  air.  On  re- 
covering partly  from  the  disorder,  he  proceeded  to  Caprea? 
and  Naples,  and  finally  accompanied  Tiberius  as  far  as  Bene- 
ventum,  where  he  took  leave  of  him.  Tiberius  went  on  to 
Brundisium,  and  took  ship  for  Illyricum,  while  the  elder 
traveller  returned  towards  the  lower  coast,  but  on  reaching 
Nola  was  attacked  with  a  fatal  relapse  of  his  recent  sickness." 

1  The  readers  of  Gibbon  will  remember  how,  at  a  late  period  of  the 
empire,  the  best  wish  that  could  be  solemnly  expressed  for  each  emperor  on 
his  accession  was,  that  he  might  be  "felicior  Augusto,"  as  well  as  "melior 
Trajano."  But  compare  the  very  striking  passage  in  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  vii. 

46.)  on  the  mortifications  of  Augustus :  "  In  divo  Augusto si 

diligenter  jestimentur  cuucta,  inagna  sortis  humanae  reperiantur  volumina,"  &c. 

a  Suetonius  gives  some  interesting  details  of  this  last  journey,  showing  the 
cheerfulness  and  self-possession  of  the  invalid  to  the  last.  Oct.  97,  98. 
Comp.  Dion,  Ivi.  29.,  Veil.  ii.  123.  The  death  of  Augustus  is  dated  the  19th 


A.U.  767.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  287 

Thereupon  messengers  were  despatched  in  all  haste  to  Ti- 
berius, by  the  order  of  Livia,  or  of  the  emperor  himself. 
The  expectant  successor  returned  without  delay ;  and  it  was 
announced  that  he  came  in  time  to  see  his  father-in-law  while 
yet  alive,  to  receive  his  parting  injunctions  in  a  long  inter- 
view, and  to  discharge  towards  him  the  last  offices  of  filial 
piety.1  But  the  real  moment  of  the  sick  man's  decease  was 
never  accurately  known.  The  empress,  it  may  be  presumed, 
would  not  have  chosen  to  reveal  it  while  her  son  was  yet 
absent,  and  before  all  requisite  preparations  had  been  made 
to  secure  the  recognition  of  his  claims.  "We  may  readily 
excuse  her  for  taking  such  precautions  to  ensure  the  object 
of  her  life's  ambition ;  but  the  Romans  were  not  content  with 
ascribing  to  her  a  little  venial  deceit;  they  gravely  repre- 
sented her  to  have  murdered  the  poor  old  man  her  husband, 
by  giving  him  poisoned  figs.  From  what  has  been  said,  how- 
ever, it  will  be  apparent  that  there  was  no  adequate  motive 
for  the  crime  :  the  fortunes  of  Tiberius,  if  not  assured  against 
all  remoter  contingencies,  were  at  the  time  at  least  fully  se- 
cure ;  absent  as  he  was  from  the  court  and  city,  the  moment 
was  not  such  as  would  be  seized  for  striking  a  blow  in  his 
behalf;  Augustus,  now  arrived  on  the  verge  of  seventy- 
seven,  had  already  lived  in  safety  with  his  reputed  murderess 
for  more  than  half  a  century,  and  had  never  been  led  to 
waver  an  instant  in  the  confidence  he  reposed  in  her ;  finally, 
we  have  seen  how  evidently  he  was  himself  impressed  with 
the  anticipation  of  a  speedy  dissolution,  which  is  so  often  the 

of  August,  767,  within  thirty-seven  days  of  his  seventy-seventh  birthday,  i.  e. 
September  23.  Suet.  Oct.  100.  His  power,  counting  from  the  battle  of, 
Actium,  Dion,  Ivi.  29.,  had  lasted  forty-four  years  all  but  thirteen  days ;  or, 
counting  from  his  triumvirate,  fifty-six  years  all  but  two  months. 

1  Suet.  Oct.  99. :  "  Revocatum  ex  itinere  Tiberium  diu  secreto  eermone 
detinuit,  neque  post  ulli  majori  negotio  animum  accommodavit."  Veil.  ii. 
123.:  "  Revocavit  filium.  Ille  expectato  revolavit  maturius,"  &c.  But  Taci- 
tus insinuates  a  doubt,  Ann.  i.  5. :  "  Vixdum  ingressus  Illyricum  Tiberius, 
properis  matris  literis  accitur ;  neque  satis  compertum  est,  spirantem  adhuc 
Augustum  apud  urbem  Jfolam,  an  exanimem  repererit."  And  the  latter  view 
is  maintained  by  Dion,  Ivi.  31. :  ravra  yap  ovrca  roT?  re  it\ft6fft  Kal  a^ioiricrro- 
repots  ytypairrat. 


288  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.D.  14. 

effect  of  an  inward  consciousness  of  decay.  To  exculpate 
Livia  or  Tiberius  from  such  a  crime  may  be  hardly  worth  the 
endeavour ;  but  it  is  important  to  mark  the  weakness  of  the 
grounds  upon  which  historians  of  high  character  could  ven- 
ture to  insinuate  it  against  them. 

The  closing  scene  of  this  illustrious  life  has  been  portrayed 
for  us  with  considerable  minuteness.  It  is  the  first  natural 
Last  moments  dissolution  of  a  great  man  we  have  been  called 
of  Augustus,  upon  to  witness,  and  it  will  be  long,  I  may  add, 
before  we  shall  assist  at  another.  Let  us  observe  it  and 
reflect  upon  it.  On  the  morning  of  his  death,  being  now 
fully  sensible  of  his  approaching  end,  Augustus  inquired 
whether  there  were  any  popular  excitement  in  anticipation 
of  it.  Being  no  doubt  reassured  upon  this  point,  he  called 
for  a  mirror,  and  desired  his  grey  hairs  and  beard  to  be 
decently  arranged.1  Then  asking  of  his  friends  around  him 
whether  he  had  played  well  his  part  in  the  drama  of  life,  he 
muttered  a  verse  from  a  comic  epilogue,  inviting  them  to 
greet  his  last  exit  with  applause.2  He  made  some  inquiries 
after  a  sick  grandchild  of  Tiberius,  and  falling  at  last  into 
the  arms  of  Livia,  had  just  strength,  in  the  last  moment  of 
expiring,  to  recommend  to  her  the  memory  of  their  long 
union.8  His  end  was  perfectly  tranquil.  He  obtained  the 
euthanasia  he  had  always  desired,  very  different,  but  not  less 
in  harmony  with  his  character,  from  that  of  his  predecessor.4 
There  was  no  cynicism,  at  least  to  my  apprehension,  in  the 
gentle  irony  with  which,  at  the  moment  of  death,  he  sported 

1  Suet.  Oct.  99. :  "  Capillum  sibi  comi,  ac  malas  labentes  corrigi  prs&- 
cepit." 

9  Suet.  1.  c. :  "  Ecquid  iia  videretur  mimum  vitoe  commode  transegisse 
....  adjecit  et  clausulam :  «I  Se  irav  ex6'  KO,\US,  T$  •naiyvitp  A6n  Kpfaov, 
Kal  iramfs  v^s  /uera  x«P«s  Krvir!)<ra.Tf."  Comp.  Dion,  Ivi.  30. 

3  Suet.  I.  c.    The  child  was  named  Livilla,  daughter  of  Drusus,  the  son  of 
Tiberius  by  Vipsania.    See  Suet.  Claud.  1. 

4  Suet.  I.  <r.:"Sortitus  facilem  exitum  et  qualem  semper  optaverat.    Nam 
fere  quoties  audisset  cito  ac  nullo  cruciatu  defunctum  quempiam  sibi  et  suis 
tu8ava<riat>  similem,  hoc  enim  et  verbo  uti  solebat,  precabatur."  The  reader 
may  remember  Caesar's  expression,  that  the  best  death  is  that  which  is  least 
expected. 


A.U.  767.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  289 

with  the  vanities  of  a  human  career.  Though  cheered  with 
no  religious  hope  for  himself,  nor  soothed  with  any  deep-felt 
yearnings  towards  his  survivors,  he  was  supported  on  the 
verge  of  the  abyss  by  the  unfailing  power  of  national  senti- 
ment, and  the  strong  assurance  that  he  had  confirmed  by  a 
great  achievement  the  fortunes  of  the  Roman  state. 

The  history  of  the  emperors  will  afford  us  abundant 
materials  for  estimating  the  strain  upon  the  heart  and  brain 
of  the  fatal  possession  of  unlimited  power.  Effect  of  sue- 
Some  men  it  puffs  up  and  intoxicates  with  pride,  cC?racPte?  of e 
as  we  have  seen  was  the  case  with  the  bold  and  AugU8tus- 
magnanimous  Csesar ;  others,  of  vehement  and  ill-regulated 
passions,  it  may  drive  to  raging  madness ;  some  it  crazes 
with  fear,  others  it  fevers  with  sensual  indulgence ;  others 
again,  whose  inteUects  are  weak,  though  their  natures  are 
susceptible  and  kindly,  it  may  reduce  to  absolute  imbecility. 
But  there  is  still  another  class  of  characters,  self-poised  and 
harmoniously  developed,  in  whom  it  breeds  a  genuine  enthu- 
siasm, a  firm  assurance  of  their  own  mission,  a  perfect  reli- 
ance on  their  own  destiny,  which  sanctifies  to  them  all  their 
means,  and  imbues  them  with  a  full  conviction  that  their 
might  is  right,  eternal  and  immutable.  At  the  close  of  his 
long  career,  Augustus  could  look  back  on  the  horrors  in 
which  it  had  commenced  without  blenching.  He  had  made 
peace  with  himself,  to  whom  alone  he  felt  himself  responsi- 
ble ;  neither  God  nor  man,  in  his  view,  had  any  claim  upon 
him.  The  nations  had  not  proclaimed  him  a  deity  in  vain ; 
he  had  seemed  to  himself  to  grow  up  to  the  full  proportions 
they  ascribed  to  him.  Such  enthusiasm,  it  may  be  argued, 
can  hardly  exist  without  at  least  some  rational 
foundation.  The  self-reliance  of  Augustus  was  andbcttefinhta 
justified  by  his  success.  He  had  resolved  to  raise 
himself  to  power,  and  he  had  succeeded.  He  had  vowed  to 
restore  the  moral  features  of  the  republic,  and  in  this  too  he 
had,  at  least  outwardly,  succeeded.  While,  however,  the 
lassitude  of  the  Romans,  and  their  disgust  at  the  excesses  of 
the  times,  had  been  the  main  elements  of  his  success,  another 

YOL.  IV. — 19 


290  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  [A.  D.  14. 

and  more  vulgar  agent,  one  which  it  might  seem  to  need  no 
genius  to  wield,  had  been  hardly  less  efficacious ;  and  this 
was  simply  his  command  of  money.  Throughout  his  long 
reign,  Augustus  was  enabled  to  maintain  a  system  of  profuse 
liberality,  partly  by  strict  economy  and  moderation  in  his  own 
habits,  but  more  by  the  vast  resources  he  had  derived  from 
his  conquests.  He  was  anxious  to  keep  the  springs  of  this 
abundance  ever  flowing,  and  he  found  means  to  engage  the 
wealthiest  of  his  subjects  to  feed  them  with  gifts  and  lega- 
cies. The  people  were  content  to  barter  their  freedom  for 
shows  and  largesses,  to  accept  forums  and  temples  in  place 
of  conquests ;  and  while  their  ruler  directed  his  sumptuary 
laws  against  the  magnificence  of  the  nobles,  because  it  threw 
a  shade  over  the  economy  which  his  own  necessities  required, 
he  cherished  the  most  luxurious  tastes  among  the  people,  and 
strained  every  nerve  to  satiate  them  with  the  appliances  of 
indolent  enjoyment,  with  baths  and  banquets,  with  galleries 
and  libraries,  with  popular  amusements  and  religious  solem- 
nities. 

Yet  the  secret  of  his  power  escaped  perhaps  the  eyes  of 
Augustus  himself,  blinded  as  they  doubtless  were  by  the 
Concluding  re-  fumes  of  national  incense.  Cool,  shrewd,  and 
flections.  subtle,  the  youth  of  nineteen  had  suffered  neither 

interest  nor  vanity  to  warp  the  correctness  of  his  judgments. 
The  accomplishment  of  his  desires  was  marred  by  no  wan- 
dering imaginations.  His  struggle  for  power  was  supported 
by  no  belief  in  a  great  destiny,  but  simply  by  observation  of 
circumstances,  and  a  close  calculation  of  his  means.  As  he 
was  a  man  of  no  absorbing  tastes  or  fervid  impulses,  so  he 
was  also  free  from  all  illusions.  The  story  that  he  made  his 
illicit  amours  subservient  to  his  policy,  whether  or  not  it  be 
strictly  true,  represents  correctly  the  man's  real  character. 
The  young  Octavius  commenced  his  career  as  a  narrow- 
minded  aspirant  for  material  power.  But  his  intellect  ex- 
panded with  his  fortunes,  and  his  soul  grew  with  his  intellect. 
The  emperor  was  not  less  magnanimous  than  he  was  magnifi- 
cent. With  the  world  at  his  feet,  he  began  to  conceive  the 


A.U.767.]  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  291 

real  grandeur  of  his  position ;  he  learnt  to  comprehend  the 
manifold  variety  of  the  interests  subjected  to  him ;  he  rose 
to  a  sense  of  the  awful  mission  imposed  upon  him.  He 
became  the  greatest  of  Stoic  philosophers,  inspired  with  the 
strongest  enthusiasm,  and  impressed  the  most  deeply  with  a 
consciousness  of  divinity  within  him.  He  acknowledged,  not 
less  than  a  Cato  or  a  Brutus,  that  the  man-God  must  suffer 
as  well  as  act  divinely ;  and  though  his  human  weakness  still 
allowed  some  meannesses  and  trivialities  to  creep  to  light,  his 
self-possession  both  in  triumphs  and  reverses,  in  joys  and  in 
sorrows,  was  consistently  dignified  and  imposing.1 

1  The  deep  impression  this  ruler's  character  made  upon  a  hundred  mil- 
lions of  subjects,  is  strongly  marked  in  the  eloquent  though  high-flown  pane- 
gyric which  Philo  the  Jew  pronounces  upon  him :  <5  5<«  /jtfytQos  fiyeovias 
ouTo/cporovy  6fj.ou  KOI  Ka\oK.aya6iaf  irptaros  &vo/jLaff6fls  2ej8a<7TJ>s,  oil  5ia5o%j} 
•yeVous  Hxrirtp  rl  K\^pov  jue'pos  T^V  tirwvvfj.iai'  \af3wir  a\\'  curbs  yev6pfvos 
(cat  TOIS  (veira'  K.  r.  \.  Philo.  Leg.  ad  Caium.  21. 


292  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 


CHAPTER    XXXIX. 


UNITY  OF  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  -  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  THE  THREE  GREAT  DIVISIONS 
OF  THE  ANCIENT  WORLD,  THE  EAST,  THE  NORTH,  AND  THE  WEST.  —  TARIETY 
WITHIN  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  :  1.  OF  LANGUAGES  ;  2.  OF  RELIGIONS  ;  3.  OF 
CLASSES  :  CITIZENS,  SUBJECTS,  AND  ALLIES,  ALL  GRADUALLY  TEND  TO  A  SINGLE 
TYPE.  -  ELEMENTS  OF  UNITY  IN  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  FROM  ITS  GEOGRAPHICAL 
FEATURES.  -  ITALY  AND  THE  MEDITERRANEAN.  -  COMMUNICATIONS  BY  SEA  AND 
LAND.  -  MAP  OF  THE  EMPIRE  :  SURVEYS  I  CENSUS  AND  PROFESSIO.  -  BREVIA- 
RIUM  OR  REGISTER  OF  THE  EMPIRE.  —  THE  POPULATION  OF  THE  ROMAN  DOMIN- 
IONS UNDER  AUGUSTUS.  —  UNIVERSAL  PEACE  ;  PAX  ROMANA. 


conquests  of  Sulla  and  Lucullus,  and  still  more  those 
of  Pompeius,  opened  a  new  world  to  the  Romans,  and 
The  empire  of  extended  their  dominion,  as  they  proudly  boasted, 
the  world.  over  another  hemisphere.  Lords  alike  of  the  East 
and  of  the  West,  their  sway  seemed  to  stretch  to  the  horizon 
on  either  side.  They  listened  first  with  complacent  satisfac- 
tion to  the  flattery  of  the  Greeks,  who  sought  to  extenuate 
the  shame  of  their  own  overthrow  by  magnifying  the  force 
and  glory  of  their  conquerors  ;  but  the  orators  of  the  forum 
soon  caught  up  these  exaggerated  strains,  and  Cicero  him- 
self could  venture  to  declare  that  the  whole  globe  was  shaken 
by  the  convulsion  of  the  civil  wars.1  The  establishment  of  the 
Augustan  monarchy,  expressing  the  material  and  moral  unity 
of  so  many  climes  and  nations,  penetrated  the  Roman  mind 
still  more  deeply  with  a  sense  of  the  vastness  of  the  national 
power,  and  the  boundless  extent  of  its  dominion.  If  any 

1  Polyb.  iii,  3.  :  The  Romans,  he  says,  tirolricrav  iratrav  T^V  olicovufvriv 
virriKooi>  avrois.  Cic.  ad  Div.  ii.  16.  iv.  1.  :  "  hac  orbis  terrarum  perturba- 
tione  .  .  .  orbem  terrarum  ardere  bello." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  293 

realms  or  nations  still  lay  beyond  the  tread  of  the  proconsular 
legions,  they  were  known  to  the  mass  of  the  citizens  only  as 
suppliants  or  tributaries  from  the  delusive  legends  of  the 
imperial  medals.  These  illusions  were  widely  propagated  by 
the  glowing  language  of  orators  and  courtly  versifiers ;  though 
not  Virgil  only  and  Horace,  but  Tibullus  also  and  Propertius, 
generally  speak  upon  this  tempting  theme  with  dignified 
moderation.  With  the  lively  and  witty  Ovid,  however,  there 
is  an  end  of  all  such  reserve.  The  author  of  the  Fasti  and  the 
Metamorphoses  indulges  without  scruple  or  reflection  in  the 
boldest  assertions  of  the  unbounded  power  of  Rome,  and  its 
extension  over  all  the  earth.  He  defies  great  Jove  himself, 
when  he  casts  his  eyes  down  from  the  pinnacles  of  heaven,  to 
descry  throughout  creation  any  object  which  is  not  actually 
Roman.1 

A  glance  on  the  map  of  the  world,  as  it  is  known  in  our  own 
times,  will  suffice  to  reduce  these  vaunts  to  their  proper  limits. 
At  this  moment  the  globe  contains  three  at  least, 

./»,./»  .  i_      .*»      i_  •   i_  3     •  Three  families 

if  not  four  empires,  each  of  which,  exceeds  in  size  of  nations  in 
the  dominions  of  Rome  at  the  period  of  their  westfan'dthe 
greatest  extension,  and  of  which  one  only  com- 
prises a  few  acres  of  all  the  regions  over  which  Augustus 
held  sway.*    It  will  be  fairer,  however,  to  measure  the  ideas 
of  the  Romans  by  the  knowledge  they  themselves  possessed ; 

1  Compare  the  noble  and  legitimate  aspiration  of  Horace,  "  possis  nihil 
urbe  Roma  visere  majus,"  with  the  reckless  assertion  of  Ovid : 
"  Jupiter  arce  sua  totum  cum  spectat  in  orbem, 

Nil  nisi  Romanum  quod  .tueatur  habet." 

But  Horace  had  said,  "  totum  confecta  duella  per  orbem ; "  and  Virgil,  "  Pa- 
catumque  reget  patriis  virtutibus  orbem."  Seneca  views  the  subject  rather 
differently.  If  Rome  did  not  possess  the  whole  world  she  had  all  that  was 
worth  having.  "Omnes  considera  gentes  hi  quibus  Romana  pax  desinit; 
Germanos,  dico,  et  quicquid  circa  Istrum  vagarum  gentium  occursat.  Per- 
petua  illos  hyems,  triste  coelum  premit,  maligne  solum  sterile  sustentat,  imbrem 
culmo  aut  fronde  defendunt,  super  durata  glacie  stagna  persultant,  in  alimentum 
feras  captant."  De  Provid.  4. 

*  The  Russian,  the  British,  the  American,  and,  if  it  still  exist,  the  Chinese. 
Gibraltar,  Malta,  and  the  Ionian  islands  are  the  only  fragments  of  the  Augus- 
tan empire  included  in  any  of  these  vast  agglomerations  of  territory. 


294:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

though  judged  even  by  this  test,  the  extravagance  of  their 
notions  will  stand  reproved.  The  tripartite  division  of  the 
earth's  surface  is  a  tradition  of  unknown  antiquity,  though 
it  has  been  differently  applied  at  different  epochs.  At  one 
time  it  was  usual  to  separate  Asia  from  the  rest  by  a  vertical 
line  from  north  to  south,  and  again  to  subdivide  the  western 
hemicycle  by  a  line  drawn  horizontally  through  the  Mediter- 
ranean, into  the  two  continents  of  Europe  and  Africa.  At 
another  the  cardinal  line  was  traced  from  east  to  west,  leav- 
ing Europe,  with  half  of  Asia,  as  a  single  compartment,  above 
it,  and  the  rest  of  Asia  with  Africa,  which  were  again  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other,  below.  But  these  divisions  were 
merely  arbitrary ;  at  least  they  recommended  themselves  to 
the  eye  only.  At  the  period  we  are  now  considering  the 
known  world  admits  of  a  more  philosophical  division,  with 
reference  to  its  social  and  political  features,  while  the  prin- 
ciple of  tripartition  may  be  still  retained.  At  the  foundation 
of  the  empire  the  communities  of  the  Roman  world  were 
massed  in  three  principal  families,  and  these  continued  for 
many  ages  to  retain  their  most  distinctive  characteristics. 
They  may  be  represented  as  the  East,  the  West,  and  the 
North ;  the  realms,  1st,  of  the  Parthian,  Indian,  and  Ara- 
bian ;  2nd,  of  the  Roman  with  all  his  subject  peoples ;  and, 
lastly,  of  the  German,  Scythian,  and  Sarmatian.  On  the  one 
hand,  a  line  drawn  from  the  crest  of  the  Caucasus  across  the 
heads  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  descending  thence  along 
the  frontiers  of  Syria  and  Palestine,  till  it  struck  the  northern 
extremity  of  the  Red  Sea,  would  separate  the  dominions  of 
Rome  from  those  of  her  chief  rival,  Parthia,  and  the  allies  the 
Parthian  could  summon  to  his  aid,  or  the  kindred  monarchies 
he  might  pretend  to  influence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  eye 
following  the  British  Channel,  the  Rhine,  and  the  Danube, 
and  glancing  across  the  Euxine  and  the  Caspian,  till  it  lost 
itself  in  the  steppes  of  central  Asia,  might  distinguish  be- 
tween the  unexplored  realms  of  the  northern  barbarians  on 
the  left,  and  the  two  great  empires  of  civilized  humanity  on 
the  right. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  295 

The  political  characteristics  of  these  three  co-ordinate  sec- 
tions may  be  contrasted  not  less  readily  than  their  geographi- 
cal positions.  In  the  patriarchal  despotism  which 

Their  political 

prevailed  throughout  the  East,  all  power  emana-  characteristics 

,-,/.  ,,  .  ,     ,  jTii.  i      contrasted. 

ted  irom  the  sovereign,  and  descended  through  i.  Parthtaand 
the  channels  ordained  by  his  sole  will  and  pleas-  Spirit  of  inonar- 
ure.  From  the  Parthian  sultan  on  his  throne  at  cl 
Seleucia,  to  the  Arab  sheikh  who  directed  a  handful  of  roving 
bandits  from  his  tent  in  the  desert,  the  same  principle  of 
government  was  there  generally  admitted.  The  military 
chiefship  of  the  Macedonian  kings  became,  as  soon  as  they 
were  settled  in  Asia,  an  uncontrolled  monarchy,  checked  by 
no  prerogatives  of  nobles  or  people.  The  successors  of  Alex- 
ander inherited  the  tiara  of  Darius.  In  the  same  manner  the 
feudal  principles  respected  by  the  old  Parthian  kings  in  their 
mountain  fastnesses,  where  the  great  vassals  of  the  crown  had 
each  his  proper  place  and  privileges,  entitled  to  the  deference 
of  the  sovereign  himself,  vanished  almost  as  soon  as  the 
horsemen  of  the  Oxus  touched  the  soil  of  Seleucia  and  Baby- 
lon, and  yielded  to  the  pure  autocracy  exercised  there  long 
before  by  the  Mede  and  the  Persian. 

The  chief  feature,  however,  of  the  northern  polities,  if 
such  a  term  is  applicable  to  so  rude  a  society,  consisted  in  the 
voluntary  surrender  of  each  man's  will  and  action 
to  a  chief  chosen  by  himself  for  a  definite  object,  and  the  North. 
The  German  warriors  assembled  for  the  choice  of  personal  iib- 
a  captain  to  point  out  to  them  the  foe,  to  lead  ert>> 
them  against  him,  to  divide  his  territories  among  them.  They 
required  him  also  to  execute  justice  between  them,  and  ordi- 
narily appealed  to  his  decision,  when  their  passions  were  not 
too  strongly  excited  to  forego  a  mere  trial  of  strength.  But, 
destitute  as  they  were  of  cities,  and  nearly  destitute  even  of 
villages,  they  had  no  conception  of  municipal  government, 
and  the  intricate  questions  of  right  thence  arising.  Their 
property,  held  for  the  most  part  in  common,  was  hardly  a 
subject  of  legal  regulation ;  religion,  directed  by  the  voice 
of  priests,  oracles,  and  prophetesses,  had  little  of  prescribed 


296  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

system  or  traditional  forms ;  while  consultation  in  common 
for  the  purpose  of  permanent  legislation  was  apparently  sel- 
dom used.  The  instinct  of  municipal  organization  which  has 
been  since  so  conspicuous  among  them,  remained  yet  to  be 
developed  in  the  character  of  the  northern  nations.  The 
spirit  of  personal  independence  was  as  yet  a  sufficient  safe- 
guard of  freedom,  and  enabled  them  to  resist  with  success 
the  formidable  aggressions  of  their  invaders :  but  it  would 
not  have  availed  to  overthrow  the  fabric  of  an  established 
civilization,  much  less  to  replace  it ;  and  the  four  centuries 
which  were  yet  to  intervene  before  the  northern  races,  con- 
fronted on  the  Rhine  and  Danube  with  Roman  laws  and 
manners,  should  succeed  to  the  empire  of  the  South,  were  a 
period  of  slow  and  gradual  training  in  the  science  of  law  and 
government. 

The  political  notions  which  animated  the  two  great  civil- 
izing nations  of  antiquity,  the  Greek  and  the  Roman,  were 
remarkable  for  their  similarity.     The  idea  of  the 

3.  Greece  and  .  „         .   ,    ,         . 

Rome  in  the  city,  as  the  germ  ol  social  development,  was  com- 
of  municipal  mon  to  both.  The  spirit  of  the  institutions  of 
government.  Athens  an(j  ROme  was  in  the  main  identical. 
It  was  marked  by  common  consultation,  by  oral  discussion, 
by  the  recognition  of  the  opinion  of  the  majority  as  the  sen- 
tence of  the  community,  by  the  combination  in  the  same 
hands  of  the  civil,  the  military,  and  the  religious  administra- 
tion, and  generally  by  a  preference  of  the  elective  to  the  he- 
reditary principle  in  every  department  of  government.  How- 
ever much  of  the  details  of  their  political  constitution  the  Ro- 
mans derived  from  the  Etruscans,  they  permitted  little  devia- 
tion, under  that  foreign  influence,  from  these  great  fundamen- 
tals. They  created  and  maintained  from  the  first  the  theories 
of  government,  which  have  approved  themselves  as  the  sound- 
est to  after  ages,  and  which  are  generally  accepted  among  the 
most  advanced  of  modern  nations  as  the  genuine  expression 
of  right  reason.  When  the  Romans  conquered  Italy  they 
found  tl  emselves  in  collision  with  no  hostile  and  irreconcile- 
able  political  conceptions.  There  was  no  difficulty,  therefore, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  297 

in  admitting  the  nations  of  the  peninsula  to  the  privileges  of 
the  conquering  city,  for  they  had  been  educated  to  under- 
stand and  appreciate  them  by  familiarity  with  their  own.  So 
it  was  with  the  conquests  of  the  Greeks  also.  Throughout 
the  regions  where  the  Hellenic  race  had  settled,  in  which  it 
had  amalgamated  the  natives  to  a  great  extent  with  itself,  the 
ideas  of  municipal  government  had  taken  root  and  become 
naturalized.  The  conquerors  did  not  find  it  necessary  to 
supplant  these  institutions  by  formulas  of  their  own :  both 
the  one  and  the  other  were  in  fact  homogeneous.  Even  in 
lower  Italy  and  Sicily,  and  still  more  commonly  in  Greece 
and  Asia  Minor,  we  find  that  the  petty  communities  of  Hel- 
lenic origin  were  frequently  allowed  to  retain  their  laws  and 
local  administration.  The  general  ideas  of  self-government 
and  social  progress,  which  had  formed  the  strength  of  Athens 
and  Rome,  continued  to  animate  the  two  great  families,  the 
Italian  and  Hellenic,  in  which  the  moral  force  of  the  united 
empire  resided. 

In  the  West,  on  the  other  hand,  the  native  races  had  far 
less  of  this  instinct  for  municipal  government :  many  of  them, 
as  in  Spam  and  Africa,  were  probably  altogether 

J  Barbarian 

devoid  of  it.    Here  the  conqueror  came  as  an  in-  races  of  the 
structor  and  a  civilizer.      Self-government  was 
recommended  to  the  Gauls  and  Iberians  by  the  moral  supe- 
riority of  their  new  rulers,  which  they  acknowledged  with 
awe  and  admiration.1    Accordingly  little  effort  was  required 

1  Yet  this  may  be  a  fit  place  to  remark  that  the  civilization  of  barbarians, 
at  least  their  material  cultivation,  has  been  generally  more  advanced  by  in- 
structors whose  moral  superiority  was  less  strongly  marked,  than  where  the 
teachers  and  the  taught  have  few  common  sympathies  and  points  of  contact. 
Thus,  in  our  own  times,  rough  whalers  and  brutal  pirates  have  done  more  to 
Europeanize  the  natives  of  Polynesia  than  the  missionaries ;  and  it  may  be 
believed  that  the  success  of  the  Romans  hi  assimilating  to  themselves  the 
barbarian  races  of  their  empire,  which  has  been  deemed  one  of  the  lost  arts, 
was  owing  in  a  great  degree  to  the  low  moral  standard  of  the  conquerors 
themselves,  which  brought  them  nearer  to  the  level  of  their  subjects.  When 
this  moral  infirmity  was  found  to  be  united,  as  in  the  case  before  us,  with  in- 
tellectual and  social  superiority,  the  influence  it  exercised  over  the  inferior 


298  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

to  impress  on  these  people  the  advantage  of  managing  their 
local  affairs  under  Roman  forms.  We  have  already  seen  how 
the  western  half  of  the  empire  became  much  more  closely 
assimilated  to  Italy  than  the  eastern :  in  the  one  region  Roman 
ideas  were  transplanted  in  their  full  maturity  to  the  foreign 
land ;  hi  the  other  they  found  themselves  confronted  and  held 
aloof  by  a  rival  civilization  at  least  equal  to  their  own,  long 
fixed  and  rooted  in  the  soil. 

We  may  pause  in  this  place,  and  examine  in  some  detail  the 
elements  of  variety  which  thus  existed  together  in  the  political 
Elements  of  condition  of  the  Roman  empire  ;  an  empire  which 
th^»omanhln  comprehended  at  least  an  hundred  divers  races 
empire.  among  its  subjects,  speaking  perhaps  many  more 

languages  and  dialects ;  which  numbered  some  thousands  of 
towns  or  cities,  each  endowed  with  its  own  laws  and  admin- 
istration, each  having  its  several  classes  of  inhabitants,  with 
peculiar  privileges  and  functions — the  citizen,  the  metic,  the 
stranger,  and  the  slave ;  which  acknowledged  at  the  same 
tune  the  sanctity  of  manifold  religions,  and  suffered  a  para- 
mount or  exclusive  authority  to  be  claimed  by  a  multitude 
of  distinct  divinities,  each  in  its  own  peculiar  sphere. 

I./  There  is  no  trace  of  the  Romans  seeking  in  any  quarter 
to  impose  their  own  language  on  the  conquered  races,  or  pro- 
VarietieB  of  scribing  the  native  tongue.  The  furthest  extent 
to  which  they  allowed  themselves  to  go  in  ob- 
truding a  single  favoured  idiom  on  their  subjects,  was  in  con- 
ducting public  business  throughout  the  empire  in  Latin,  a 
practice  dictated  by  convenience,  though  sanctioned  no  doubt 
by  a  feeling  of  national  pride.  The  majesty  of  Rome,  that 
moral  charm  on  which  her  authority  was  made  to  rest  even 
more  than  on  her  arms,  might  seem  to  require  that  her  chief 

race  was  irresistibly  seductive.  But  hence  the  new  civilization  of  the  Roman 
provinces  was  rotten  from  the  first.  Its  foundation  was  laid  on  a  mere  quick- 
sand :  there  were  no  steadfast  and  solid  virtues,  however  rude  and  homely,  at 
the  bottom  of  it.  Hence  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Africa  produced  no  original  minds 
in  any  branch  of  art  or  science,  no  schools  of  thought,  no  principles  of  action, 
and  exercised  no  moral  control  on  the  course  of  events. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  299 

magistrates  and  generals  should  use  no  other  language  than 
her  own,  and  allow  no  other  to  be  addressed  to  them  in  the 
provinces,  and  still  more  that  the  debates  of  the  senate  at 
home,  the  parliamentary  model  and  court  of  appeal  of  all 
nations,  should  be  confined  to  the  vernacular  dialect,  at  a  time 
when  in  private  every  educated  Roman  was  in  the  habit  of 
talking  Greek  almost  as  commonly  as  Latin.  Some  vigilance 
was  required,  in  such  a  state  of  things,  to  maintain  the  purity 
of  this  oificial  language  of  the  state,  to  keep  the  door  closed 
against  the  intrusion  of  alien  idioms  into  its  most  solemn  dis- 
cussions ;  and  Tiberius  was  noted  for  the  strictness  with 
which  he  insisted  on  this  etiquette  in  drawing  up  the  decrees 
of  the  senate.1  The  Roman  language  was  used  in  every  offi- 
cial act  to  the  furthest  borders  of  the  empire ;  but  it  was 
translated  .into  the  local  dialect,  and  often  again  into  the 
Greek,  as  the  classical  channel  of  communication  between 
the  instructed  of  all  countries.2  The  Greek  language  indeed 
pervaded,  as  we  have  seen,  the  whole  of  the  East-  prevalence  of 
ern  provinces,  and  was  generally  understood  by  ilste'rnVrov. 
the  more  intelligent  even  of  the  lower  classes.  lnces- 
Among  these  the  knowledge  of  it  was  probably  disseminated 
by  the  Greek  slaves  who  followed  in  the  retinue  of  every 
noble  Roman,  and  generally  transacted  his  business.  In 
Rome,  however,  it  was  acknowledged  and  prized  as  the 
vehicle  of  poetry,  philosophy,  history,  and  science.  In  all 
these  branches  of  learning  the  writers  of  Latin  avowed  them- 
selves to  be  merely  imitators ;  they  pretended  to  no  higher 

1  Suet.  Tib.  71. :  "  Sermone  Graeco,  quanquam  alias  promptus  et  facilis, 
non  tamen  usquequaque  usus  est,  abstinuitque  maxime  in  Senatu,  adeo  quidem 
ut  monopolium  nominaturus,  prius  veniam  postularit,  quod  sibi  verbo  pere- 
grino  utendum  esset.  Atque  etiam  in  quodam  decreto  Patrum,  quum  ^^AT;^O 
recitaretur,  commutandam  censuit  vocem,"  &c. 

a  Hence  we  read  that  the  inscription  on  the  cross  was  written  in  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew.  The  co-ordination  of  the  three  languages  among  the 
Jews  is  curiously  exemplified,  as  regards  personal  names,  in  the  incidental 
notice  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  xv.  21. :  "Simon  the  Cyrenian,  the  father  of  Alex- 
ander and  Rufus."  But  generally  the  names  of  Jews  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament  are  in  about  equal  proportion,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew. 


300  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

aim  than  that  of  naturalizing  among  their  own  countrymen 
the  ideas  of  their  intellectual  mistress.  They  had  their 
children  taught  Greek  from  infancy  ;l  they  spoke  it  habitu- 
ally in  their  own  families ;  they  wrote  in  it  their  private 
correspondence  ;  they  discussed  in  it  with  their  learned  slaves 
matters  of  art,  science,  and  domestic  economy ;  and  many  mas- 
ters of  Roman  literature  composed  without  affectation  some 
pieces  in  Greek  also.  They  indulged  a  humble  hope  of  leav- 
ing to  posterity  a  more  durable  monument  of  themselves  than 
stone  or  brass,  by  embalming  the  record  of  their  actions  in 
the  language  of  Xenophon  and  Thucydides.1  It  is  curious 
how  entirely  this  calculation  has  failed.  Such  memorials  of 
Roman  statesmen  and  captains  have  universally  perished ; 
nor  does  there  exist  any  composition  of  a  Roman  writer  in 
Greek  until  we  come  at  least  to  a  somewhat  later  age.1 

But  Latin,  while  it  thus  yielded  without  reluctance  to  the 
superior  claims  of  its  rival  throughout  the  East,  and  to  a 
of  Latin  in  the  great  extent  even  in  Italy  and  Rome  itself,  was 
Western.  compensated  by  a  still  more  remarkable  triumph 
in  the  opposite  quarters  of  the  empire.4  We  have  no  intima- 
tion that  force  was  employed  in  planting  this  Language  in 
Gaul  or  Spain,  Pannonia  or  Africa  ;  that  the  use  of  the  ver- 
nacular idioms  was  ever  interdicted,  or  the  native  children 
drafted  into  schools  to  learn  that  of  their  conquerors.  Yet 
scarcely  had  one  generation  passed  away,  after  the  incorpora- 

1  Dial,  de  Orat.  29. :  "At  none  natus  infans  delegatur  Graculae  alicui 
anriDje." 

*  Thus,  besides  Cicero's  history  of  his  consulship,  there  were  memoirs  of 
the  younger  Scipio,  of  Lucullus,  of  Sulla,  &c.,  in  Greek.    Fabius  Pictor  and 
Cincius  wrote  Roman  history  in  that  language. 

*  The  Geography  of  Strabo  (in  the  reign  of  Tiberius),  preserTed  to  us  by 
its  rare  merits,  is  perhaps  the  earnest  of  the  kind. 

4  The  reason  why  the  Latin  never  prevailed  over  the  Greek,  is  because  the 
Greek  is  a  language  of  later  formation  than  the  other.  A  people  who  had  ad- 
vanced so  far  in  accuracy  and  discrimination  as  to  use  the  article,  middle  verb, 
and  such  a  variety  of  moods,  cases,  and  inflexions,  as  the  Greeks,  could  not  re- 
turn to  the  meagre  elements  of  the  Latin  tongue.  For  the  greater  antiquity 
of  Latin,  see  Donaldson,  Netc  Crattfu*,  ed.  2.  p.  127.  But  Latin,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  no  doubt  more  copious  and  varied  than  any  of  the  western  idioms. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  301 

tion  of  these  countries  with  the  empire,  before  the  use  of 
Latin  seems  to  have  become  almost  universal  among  them. 
Some  districts  of  Gaul  continued,  indeed,  as  at  this  day,  to 
utter  the  cherished  sounds  of  their  own  Celtic  idioms ;  the 
language  of  the  Vascones  or  Basques  retained  its  savage 
supremacy,  as  it  still  does,  in  remote  corners  of  Spain  ;  frag- 
ments of  the  ancient  Moorish  tongue,  and  of  the  Punic  en- 
grafted on  it,  lingered,  we  may  believe,  among  the  African 
provinces  ; l  but  in  all  these  vast  regions  Latin  became,  at  a 
very  early  period,  the  ordinary  language  of  the  people ;  it 
reached,  within  one  or  two  centuries,  the  limits  beyond  the 
Alps  and  the  Pyrenees  which  it  has  ever  since  retained. 
Strabo,  born  in  the  lifetime  of  Augustus,  tells  us  that  in 
some  parts  of  Spain  the  native  language  was  in  his  day 
already  forgotten.8  Latin,  we  learn  from  Velleius  Patercu- 
lus,  was  generally  spoken 3  in  Pannonia  twenty  years  after  its 
subjugation.  While  Divitiacus  had  lived  for  years  at  Rome 
without  acquiring  it,  in  the  course  of  two  generations  we 
find  Arminius  speaking  it  without  hesitation.4  The  conquests 
of  a  language  seem  to  depend,  not  so  much  on  the  compara- 
tive numbers  of  the  people  who  speak  it,  as  on  the  moral 
influence  they  exert.  We  here  discover  an  additional  proof 
that  Rome  occupied,  in  the  view  of  the  western  races,  the 
same  place  which  Greece  claimed  in  the  eyes  of  the  Romans. 
She  was  beheld  with  the  same  awe  and  respect,  and  acknowl- 
edged as  a  mistress  in  civilization  more  potent  than  in  arms. 
The  western  nations  were  content  never  to  look  beyond  Rome 
for  their  ideas,  just  as  the  Romans  never  looked  beyond 

1  "  Apuleius  reproaches  an  African  youth,  who  lived  among  the  populace, 
with  the  use  of  Punic,  whilst  he  had  almost  forgot  Greek,  and  neither  could 
nor  would  Speak  Latin.  Apolog.  p.  656.  The  greater  part  of  St.  Austin's 
congregations  were  strangers  to  the  Punic."  Gibbon,  Ded.  and  fall, 
ch.  ii. 

3  Strabo,  iii.  2.  p.  151. :  oXA.'  of  fj.(v  TovpSeravol  Kal  fjAXiara.  ol  vepl  rb» 
BOUTIV  ....  ovSe  T7)S  5ta\fKTOv  rrjj  ff$tTepa.s  tn  fj.tfj.vrifj.tvoi. 

3  Veil.  ii.  110.:   "In  omnibus  Pannoniis  non  discipline  tantummodo  sed 
linguae  quoque  notitia  Romans,  plerisque  etiam  literarum  usus." 

4  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  10. 


302  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Greece.  The  monuments  of  Egyptian  life  and  manners, 
which  the  children  of  Hellen  acknowledged  as  the  source 
of  so  much  of  their  own  inspiration,  were  merely  objects  of 
vague  curiosity  to  the  descendants  of  Quirinus. 

II.  Accordingly,  while  we  observe  the  wide  diversities 
of  language  thus  existing  within  the  sphere  of  the  empire, 
ii.  Varieties  of  we  perceive  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  doom- 
ed soon  to  merge  in  one  or  two  superior  types  of 
speech.  The  variety,  however,  of  the  religious  systems  in 
vogue  under  the  Roman  dominion,  offered  a  more  obstinate 
resistance  to  the  tendency,  which  was  now  every  where  ex- 
hibited, towards  uniformity.  According  to  modern  notions 
there  is  nothing  more  vital  to  the  existence  of  national  unity 
than  the  unity  of  its  religious  views.  To  the  maintenance  of 
this  unity  philosophers  and  statesmen  have  directed  their  most 
ardent  efforts,  the  one  by  argument,  the  other  often  by  force. 
The  dawn  of  consciousness  that  it  has  ceased  to  exist  has 
been  felt  as  a  shock  which  it  was  necessary  to  conceal  from 
popular  observation.  In  proportion  as  the  actual  variety  of 
belief  among  the  people  has  become  apparent,  the  state  itself 
has  seemed  to  rock  to  and  fro,  to  lose  its  balance,  to  let  go 
its  fixed  principles,  to  become  a  mere  collection  of  unce- 
mented  atoms.  Very  foreign,  however,  were  any  such  feel- 
ings from  the  ideas  with  which  the  Romans  were  conversant. 
In  the  height  of  their  power,  when  their  own  faith  and  their 
own  right  hands  were  equally  potent,  they  felt  no  scruple  in 
allowing  every  race  and  every  man  among  their  subjects  to 
worship  his  God  after  his  own  fashion.  We  have  seen  how 
the  national  divinities  of  Gaul  were  respected  by  the  con- 
querors ;  and  the  same  was  doubtless  the  case,  though  we 
have  not  the  means  of  tracing  it,  in  every  other  province. 
The  honours  paid  them  by  the  natives,  and  even  by  the  Roman 
residents,  survived  in  many  parts  the  vernacular  languages.1 
In  Jerusalem,  Augustus  caused  a  sacrifice  to  be  offered 

1  The  votive  inscriptions,  of  which  there  are  many  existing,  to  the  Gallic 
divinities,  run  generally  in  the  name  of  Roman  worshippers,  and  always  in  the 
Latin  language 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  303 

daily  in  the  temple  for  his  own  health  and  fortunes.1  With 
few  and  special  exceptions  only,  they  allowed  foreign  cults 
to  be  practised  even  in  the  heart  of  the  imperial  city :  they 
suffered  their  own  Jupiter  on  the  Capitol  to  be  rivalled  with- 
in the  shadow  of  his  august  temple  by  deities,  whose  wor- 
shippers proclaimed  them  the  Best  and  the  Greatest,  no  less 
than  Jupiter  himself. 

ISTor  was  this  all.  There  were  temples  dedicated  to  Jupi- 
ter Capitolinus  at  Corinth,  at  Antioch,  at  Augustodunum, 
and  possibly  at  other  places,  as  well  as  at  Rome  ;  Their  local  in_ 
nor  can  we  suppose,  although  no  traces  of  such  dePendence- 
worship  appear,  that  Janus  and  Quirinus,  and  other  Roman 
divinities,  were  entirely  without  honour  in  the  colonies 
abroad.3  The  deity  of  Augustus  himself,  sometimes  in  con- 
junction with  that  of  Roma,  was  adored  with  vows  and 
sacrifices  both  in  the  East  and  West,  though  the  worship  of 
the  emperor  was  forbidden  to  Roman  citizens,  or  within  the 
bounds  of  Italy.  But  we  cannot  trace  at  least  any  bond  of 
uniformity  in  the  worship  of  the  same  gods  thus  locally 
separated.  No  jealous  eye  watched  over  their  ceremonies 
and  rituals,  no  authoritative  voice  denounced  the  discrepan- 
cies which  might  spring  up  between  their  services,  and  even 
the  attributes  in  divers  places  ascribed  to  them.  Each  tem- 
ple must  be  supposed  to  have  had  its  own  ministers,  indepen- 
dent of  other  kindred  colleges,  and  subject  only  to  the  gen- 
eral  but  ill-defined  authority  of  the  chief  of  religion,  who  was 
chief  also  of  the  state.  The  management  of  the  estates  be- 
queathed to  it  by  local  piety,  the  regulation  of  its  usages,  the 
methods  of  election  into  its  own  body,  were  left  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  each  separate  corporation.  We  shall  notice  at  a 
later  period  the  feebleness  of  this  loose  and  unconnected  sys- 
tem when  opposed  to  the  strict  organization  of  the  Christian 
churches. 

III.  Another  important  element  of  diversity  was  the  fixed 

1  Philo,  Leg.  ad  Cai.y  pp.  588.  592. 

3  Pausan.  ii.  4, ;  Liv.  xli.  20.     Eumen.   Orat.  pro  instaur.  schol.  9,  10. 
Comp.  Tzschirner,  Fall  des  Heidenthums,  p.  53. 


304  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

distinction  of  classes  in  the  empire.  The  great  aim  of  modern 
in.  Distinction  civilization  is  to  reduce  the  component  parts  of 
society  to  an  uniform  status,  at  least  in  the  eye 
of  the  law ;  to  fuse  together  all  varieties  of  race  and  origin, 
and  abolish  or  disguise  whatever  special  privileges  they  may 
have  claimed  or  exercised.  The  administration  of  Augustus, 
retrogressive  in  many  respects,  had  in  this  particular  a  con- 
trary aim,  however  it  may  have  been  thwarted  by  irresistible 
circumstances.  Augustus  strove,  with  a  zeal  which  we  may 
almost  call  fanatical,  to  retrace  more  strongly  the  old  lines 
of  social  demarcation,  which  the  disorders  of  the  times  had 
suffered  to  disappear.  The  Roman  world  was  still  com- 
posed of  citizens,  subjects,  and  allies :  such  were 

Citizens,  sub-       A 

jects,  and          the  three   co-ordinate   classes   of    society,   each 

allies 

subdivided  into   ranks   and  orders  of  its  own, 

which  alone  the  law  recognised  as  entitled  to  social   and 

political  rights.    Beyond  these,  huddled  together 

with   goods   and  chattels,  lay  the  outer  world 

of  slaves,  who  were  allowed  no  part  or  interest  in  the  law 

at  all. 

We  have  seen  with  what  precision  Augustus  regulated 
the  places  of  senators  and  knights,  citizens  and  freedmen ; 
with  respect  to  the  admission  of  strangers  to  the  franchise 
he  was  reserved  and  scrupulous.  He  abstained  altogether 
from  imparting  the  boon  to  whole  cities  and  states,  as  Casar 
and  Antonius  had  done  :  to  individuals  he  doled  out  the  pre- 
cious gift  with  a  sparing  hand.  In  the  provinces  the  condi- 
tion of  the  people  was  complicated  by  a  variety 

Distinctions  of       *«_-•_.»  J  ^r.  i.  •    *    •       J 

condition  in  the  ot  distinctions ;  and  these  too  he  maintained  ac- 
cording to  the  prescriptions  of  the  republic.  We 
have  no  data  for  assigning  the  proportion  of  the  provincial 
population  which  belonged  to  the  class  of  subjects,  and  lay 
under  the  yoke  of  Roman  laws  and  magistrates,  without  any 
free  action  of  its  own.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  large.  Caesar 
applauded  his  own  generosity  in  granting  terms  to  the  whole 
mass  of  the  Gauls,  the  use  of  their  own  customs,  choice  of 
their  magistrates,  discussion  of  their  affairs,  and  levying  of 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  305 

their  local  revenues.  Independence,  or  autonomy,  as  it  was 
called,  to  this  extent  was  enjoyed,  indeed,  by  a  large  portion 
of  every  subject  people ;  but  only  by  special  grant  at  the 
time  of  capitulation,  or  at  a  later  period  under  the  patronage 
of  some  powerful  chieftain.  Pompeius  gave  autonomy  to 
most  of  the  cities  of  Asia ;  in  Greece  the  constitutions  of  the 
several  states  were  generally  remodelled  at  the  conquest,  but 
they  were  allowed  themselves  to  administer  them.1  We  have 
already  traced  in  many  instances  the  effect  of  individual 
favour  and  caprice  in  conferring  or  withdrawing  these  co- 
veted prerogatives.  Autonomy,  however,  did  not  imply  re- 
lease from  imperial  taxation.  The  land  and  capitation  taxes, 
sometimes  together  with  a  special  tribute,  were  regularly 
enforced.  Fiscal  exemption  or  immunity  was  a  special  boon 
bestowed  only  in  the  most  favoured  cases.  The  free  states 
continued  to  mark  their  years  by  the  names  of  their  chief 
magistrates.  Archons  and  Prytanes,  as  we  learn  from  medals 
and  inscriptions,  governed  to  a  late  period  the  communities 
of  Ionian  origin,  while  the  Dorian  still  obeyed  their  Ephori 
and  Cosmi."  To  some  of  them  the  prerogative  of  coining 
money  was  long  indulged.  Each  of  them  was  suffered  to 
maintain  its  own  fiscal  regulations,  devised  with  a  view  to  its 
own  peculiar  advantage,  whereby  a  multitude  of  conflicting 
interests  was  everywhere  perpetuated ;  and  these  were  still 
further  complicated  by  the  existence  of  free  confederations, 
such  as  the  Panionian,  the  Amphictyonic,  the  Boeotian  and 
Achaean  ;  the  action  of  which  may  have  been  mainly  confined, 
however,  to  matters  of  religion  and  social  intercourse. 

But  the  friends  and  allies  of  the  Roman  people,  though 
often  locally  situate  in  the  heart  of  the  Roman  territories, 
were  neither  subject  to  the  Roman  magistrate,  Independent 
nor  tributary  to  the  imperial  treasury.    The  terms  commnnitieB 
on  which  they  held  then*  independence  were  specifically  those 
of  offensive  and  defensive  alliance ;  the  supply  of  a  military 

1  Strabo,  xii.  xiii. ;   Plin.  H.  N.  v. ;  Dion,  xxxvii.  20.;  Pausan.  vii.  16.; 
Becker's  JRoem.  Alterth.  iii.  1.  143. 
9  Hoeck,  Roem.  Gesch.  ii.  218. 

VOL.  IT. — 20 


306  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

contingent,  the  extradition  of  fugitives,  and  non-intercourse 
with  the  enemies  of  Rome.  In  return  for  such  compliances 
they  received  the  august  protection  of  the  patron  state. 
Much,  however,  as  these  apparent  anomalies  might  seem  to 
militate  against  the  actual  unity  of  the  empire,  in  practice 
they  did  not  seriously  aflect  it.  The  eye,  accustomed  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  essential  uniformity  of  the  administra- 
tion, glanced  beyond  these  petty  exceptions  without  a  pause, 
and  rested  upon  the  grand  principle  which  predominated  over 
the  whole.  Friends  and  allies,  the  free  and  the  exempted,  all 
felt  but  too  sensibly  that  their  privileges  were  held  only  at 
the  caprice  of  a  master.  Their  independence  was  after  all 
little  more  than  a  shadow.  The  edicts  of  the  proconsuls, 
and  in  later  times,  the  rescripts  of  the  emperors,  could  at 
any  time  dissipate  and  destroy  it.  Step  by  step  most  of  them 
were  in  fact  brought  down  at  last  to  the  common 
duced  to  sub-  condition  of  subjects.  The  loss  of  their  political 

jection.  ......     '  ,  .    , 

or  civic  privileges,  meagre  as  they  were,  might 
be  a  matter  of  little  regret  to  them  ;  but  as  subjects  of  the 
empire  they  found  themselves  compelled  to  bear  an  undue 
proportion  of  the  imperial  taxation,  every  deficiency  in  which 
was  ordinarily  supplied  by  additional  imposts  on  the  occupiers 
of  the  public  domain.  To  escape  from  this  ever-increasing 
burden  was  the  aim  of  their  most  earnest  endeavours,  and 
this  could  only  be  effected  by  acquiring  the  rights  of  citizen- 
ship. Every  fresh  admission  to  the  most  favoured  class  so 
far  reduced  the  area  of  general  taxation,  while  it  increased 
its  intensity.  Hence  the  impolicy,  which  Augustus  wisely 
appreciated,  of  giving  easy  access  to  it.  But  we  shall  find 
his  successors  not  always  so  scrupulous,  and  observe  how  the 
discovery,  which  was  speedily  made,  that  the  privileges  of 
citizenship  could  be  made  financially  available,  induced  them 
to  turn  in  their  necessities  to  this  fatal  resource,  and  sacrifice 
to  an  immediate  expediency  the  permanent  forces  of  the 
empire. 

The  reserve  adopted  by  Augustus  in  multiplying  the 
dominant  class  was  doubtless  manifest  to  the  provincials, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  307 

who  well  knew  that  a  wary  ruler  must  feel  alarm 


at  the  too  rapid  diminution  of  the  tax-payers  cltlzena- 
throughout  his  dominions,  under  the  opposite  policy  of  his 
predecessors.  They  would  observe  with  satisfaction  that 
the  total  number  of  exemptions,  according  to  the  census  of 
767,  did  not  exceed  by  more  than  500,000  that  which  had 
been  calculated  forty-one  years  before,  representing  an  in- 
crease in  that  period  of  only  about  one  in  thirty-two,  and 
that  it  was  actually  less  than  that  of  the  intermediate  enu- 
meration of  746.1  During  the  confusion  of  the  civil  wars  no 
census  had  been  taken  from  which  a  comparison  might  be 
instituted  between  this  moderation  and  the  lavish  profusion 
of  Caesar  and  Antonius.  Yet  however  selfish  and  reckless 
the  triumvir  had  shown  himself  in  this  respect,  the  views  of 
the  dictator  at  least  are  entitled  to  more  consideration.  Caesar 
had  felt  the  need  of  infusing  new  blood  largely  into  the  class 
who  fought  the  battles  of  the  state.  As  a  conqueror  himself 
he  knew  the  weakness  of  his  military  resources.  As  a  man 
of  science  and  letters,  he  honoured  and  rewarded  the  liberal 
professions.  Sanguine  and  ambitious,  he  relied  upon  future 
conquests  for  replenishing  the  treasury  his  liberality  ex- 
hausted and  created  new  sources  of  perennial  wealth.  But 
Augustus  indulged  in  no  such  visions.  He  found  the  citizens, 
at  least  in  Italy,  generally  indisposed  to  military  service  ;  but 
the  resources  bequeathed  him  by  his  predecessors  sufficed  for 
his  more  moderate  outlay  of  Roman  blood,  and,  except  on 
one  great  occasion  of  disaster  and  panic,  he  was  able  to 
recruit  his  military  garrisons  without  extraneous  supplies? 

1  The  numbers  of  the  censuses  of  Augustus,  as  given  on  the  Monument  of 
Ancyra,  are  as  follows  :  A.  TL  726,  4,063,000  ;  A.  u.  746,  4,233,000  ;  A.  u. 
767,  4,190,000.  These  numbers  may  be  supposed  to  represent  the  male 
citizens  of  military  age  throughout  the  empire  :  previous  enumerations,  the 
highest  of  which  scarcely  exceeded  one  tenth  of  these  numbers,  must  refer  to 
those  of  the  city  and  its  vicinity  only.  The  ratio  these  numbers  bear  to  the 
whole  class  of  citizens  of  every  age  and  both  sexes,  is  roughly  indicated  in  the 
text  ;  it  will  be  considered  more  closely  a  little  further  on. 

*  This  applies  of  course  only  to  the  legionary  force.  The  subjects  of  the 
empire  continued  to  furnish  auxiliary  cohorts,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  pro- 


308  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

But  he  would  not  suffer  even  the  Italians  to  enjoy  a  double 
immunity  both  from  arms  and  taxation.  Exemption  from 
the  tax  on  land  was  a  special  privilege,  which  they  could  not 
be  persuaded  to  forego.  Augustus,  by  the  invention  of  a 
duty  on  succession,  which  he  imposed  exclusively  on  the 
citizens,  redressed  in  some  degree  the  balance.  By  a  simple 
stroke  of  finance  he  established  the  essential  equality  of  the 
conquerors  and  the  conquered,  while  he  relieved  himself 
from  some  portion  at  least  of  the  pressure  applied  to  him  by 
those  who  sought  to  evade  by  becoming  citizens  their  due 
share  in  the  general  burdens. 

There  was  one  source,  however,  from  which,  notwith- 
standing the  emperor's  reluctance,  the  franchise  continued 
to  be  extended,  nor  could  any  direct  or  efficient 

Extension  of  ,  ,          ,         ,  •  ,        -n 

the  franchise     control  be  placed  upon  it.    J^very  propnetor  had 

by  the  manu-        -.   •      -i-  n          «,«  i_»  i  • 

mission  of  it  in  his  power  to  conier  citizenship  on  his  own 
slave  by  a  legitimate  emancipation,  nor,  till  Au- 
gustus interfered,  was  any  discouragement  thrown  on  this 
practice,  as  long  as  certain  forms  were  duly  complied  with. 
With  the  stroke  of  the  praetor's  wand,  the  slave  was  turned 
at  once  into  a  citizen,  and  the  master  became  a  patron.1  In 
the  simpler  ages  of  the  commonwealth,  no  provision  had 
been  made,  because  perhaps  none  was  practically  required, 

portion  they  bore  to  the  legions  was  gradually  increased.  Gaul  and  Spain, 
and  even  Germany,  furnished  numerous  and  well-appointed  contingents.  The 
Jews  were  generally  exempted  from  military  service  in  deference  to  their  reli- 
gions prejudices.  Joseph.  Antiq.  Jud.  xiv.  10,  11-19. 

1  It  is  to  be  observed  that  there  are  two  modes  of  manumission,  juda  and 
minus  jutta,  the  one  being  the  regular  and  legitimate  method  effected  by  the 
stroke  of  the  praetor's  wand,  which  conferred  a  certain  citizenship  with  limited 
privileges ;  the  other  required  no  formality  beyond  the  mere  word  or  certifi- 
cate of  the  master,  but  the  freedom  it  gave  was  good  only  as  against  the 
master.  The  lex  Julia  Norbana  (A.  r.  771)  first  gave  these  freedmen  a  cer- 
tain political  status,  by  assimilating  them  to  the  Latini.  See  Wallon,  Hist,  de 
FEsclavage  dans  V  Antiquite  (ii.  401.)  from  Gaius  (i.  22),  who  calls  them  Latini 
Juniani.  Under  the  republic  the  freedman  could  obtain  no  political  honours, 
could  vote  only  in  one  of  the  four  urban  tribes,  could  serve  only  in  the  marine, 
and  could  not  contract  marriage  with  a  citizen.  These  restrictions  were  how- 
ever extinguished  in  the  second  generation. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  309 

for  restraining  the  cupidity  of  masters  in  this  particular. 
The  service  of  the  slave  was  worth  more  to  his  master  than 
the  trifling  sum  he  could  have  it  in  his  power  to  offer  for  his 
freedom.  But  the  case  must  have  been  altered  when  slaves 
were  possessed  of  the  highest  personal  and  intellectual  quali- 
ties. Such  men  as  Cicero's  favourite  Tiro,  a  paragon  of  lite- 
rary accomplishments,  might  doubtless  have  bid  high  for 
manumission,  had  he  sighed  for  the  mere  name  of  liberty. 
In  many  cases  indeed  the  qualities  of  the  slave  were  a  pecu- 
niary benefit  to  the  master ;  but  it  is  natural  to  suspect  that 
the  master  was  often  induced  to  turn  this  interest  into  capital, 
by  selling  the  slave  his  freedom  outright.1  It  was  sometimes 
perhaps  from  humanity,  more  commonly  from  a  feeling  of 
pride,  that  he  manumitted  his  slaves  on  his  death-bed,  and 
secured  a  longer  retinue  of  clients  to  follow  his  bier."  But 
even  in  his  lifetime  his  vanity  might  be  fed  by  the  respect 
and  service  of  his  freedmen.  These  people  continued  after 
emancipation  attached  to  the  interests  of  their  patron,  and 
were  often  admitted  to  his  confidence,  in  places  of  trust 
which  could  not  with  propriety  be  filled  by  a  slave.  There 
are  no  intimations,  perhaps,  from  which  we  can  judge  of  the 
extent  to  which  manumission  had  actually  been  carried,  but 
undoubtedly  the  common  expectation  of  release  from  capti- 
vity rendered  the  condition  of  slavery  more  tolerable.  A  good 
and  trusty  slave,  we  infer  from  a  passage  in  Cicero,  might 
anticipate  his  emancipation  in  six  years.3  The  measure  of 
Augustus,  which  placed  a  tax  on  this  sale  of  citizenship,  may 
have  had  some  influence  in  checking  it ;  it  is  probable,  how- 

1  It  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  a  common  arrangement  that  the  slave 
should  be  allowed  to  work  on  his  own  account,  and  recover  his  freedom  for  a 
stipulated  sum.  It  appears,  however,  that  the  law  gave  him  no  protection 
against  the  violation  of  this  agreement.  See  Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  42. . 

3  Dion.  Hal.  Antiq.  Rom.  iv.  24. 

*  Gic.  Philipp.  viii.  11. :  "Etenim,  patres  conscript!,  quum  in  spem  liber- 
tatis  sexennio  post  simus  ingressi,  diutiusque  servitium  perpessi,  quam  cap- 
tivi  frugi  et  diligentes  solent."  He  counts  the  years  of  his  political  servitude 
from  the  crossing  of  the  Rubicon  (705)  to  the  declaration  of  war  against 
Antonius  (711). 


310  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

ever,  that  it  was  meant  to  serve  another  purpose,  in  feeding 
the  imperial  treasury.1 

The  slaves  formed  the  last  of  the  classes  of  the  popula- 
tion ;  and  the  marked  contrast  of  their  condition,  politically 
Slavery :  its  and  socially,  to  those  of  the  various  free  men  of 
i^Jombinfng*  *he  empire,  constituted,  no  doubt,  the  strongest 
dasBo^oTfree  element  of  diversity  in  its  system.  Throughout 
men  together.  fae  whole  extent  of  the  Roman  dominions  every 
city  and  every  mansion  was  in  fact  divided  into  two  hostile 
camps,  those  of  the  masters  and  the  slaves,  the  tyrants  and 
their  victims.  This  inveterate  hostility  of  mass  against  mass, 
would  appear  at  first  sight  to  be  a  source  of  weakness,  against 
which  no  political  contrivance  could  effectually  contend: 
nevertheless,  history  seems  to  attest  that  the  institutions  of 
slave-states  have  been  at  least  as  permanent  as  those  of 
others ;  there  has  been  no  instance  perhaps,  on  a  large  scale, 
of  the  overthrow  of  a  polity  by  a  servile  reaction.  Notwith- 
standing the  superficial  diversity  introduced  by  slavery  into 
the  Roman  state,  it  was  on  the  whole  an  element  of  unity  as 
well  as  of  strength.  It  drew  the  various  classes  of  free  men 
more  closely  together  by  the  sense  of  a  common  interest ;  it 
induced  them  to  establish  a  common  system  of  law  and  usage, 
of  police  and  repression,  in  reference  to  it ;  it  left  them  free 
to  exercise  themselves  in  arms  or  letters,  while  all  necessary 
manual  services  were  performed  for  them  by  others ;  by 
drawing  its  recruits  from  manifold  sources,  and  gradually 
transfusing  them  into  the  body  of  the  free  population,  it 
tended  to  assimilate  the  races  of  the  empire,  and  obliterate 
distinctions  of  blood,  language,  and  condition.  Drop  by 
drop  the  stream  of  barbarism  continually  distilled  into  the 
reservoir  of  the  city.  The  busts  of  the  later  empire  speak 
more  eloquently  than  any  other  evidence  to  the  gradual 

1  Under  the  republic  a  tax  of  a  twentieth  had  been  levied  on  the  sale  of 
slaves  (from  A.  u.  398  to  643) ;  and  the  money  thence  derived  was  deposited 
in  the  treasury  ;  from  whence  (the  sum  being  recorded)  Bureau  de  la  Malle 
draws  a  curious  but  unsafe  argument  regarding  the  number  of  enfranchise- 
ments. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  3H 

debasement  of  the   old  Roman  type  of  form  and  counte- 
nance. 

We  have  thus  seen  how  even  the  varieties  of  language, 
religion,  and  condition,  which  prevailed  throughout  the  Ro- 
man dominions  were  compensated  in  a  great  de- 

,         /  ••_!L  j    Elements  of 

gree  by  certain  tendencies  to  uniformity,  and  unity  in  the 
slowly  gravitated  towards  a  single  type.    There 
were  other  respects,  however,  in  which  this  progress  was 
more  rapid  and  apparent,   and  impressed  on  the  manifold 
fragments  of  the  empire  the  character  of  one  homogeneous 
mass.     From  age  to  age,  the  ever-increasing  area   of  the 
Roman  dominions  continued  to  be  generated  round  its  cen- 
tre, the  peninsula,  which,  striking  deeply  into  the 

,,  '  L   ,. .,          *    A  Italy  the  centre 

Mediterranean,  almost  divides  it  into  equal  parts,  oftheMediter- 
until  it  encircled  the  whole  of  that  great  basin 
with  a  belt  of  populous  provinces,  studded  with  rich  and 
splendid  cities.  Before  the  conquests  of  Csesar  and  Pompeius, 
the  map  of  the  empire  was  merely  a  chart  of  the  T^  Medlter. 
Mediterranean.  Cicero  had  said  of  the  Greek  SSt»Stt? 
states  and  colonies  throughout  the  world  that  emPire- 
they  were  a  fringe,  as  it  were,  on  the  skirts  of  barbarism  ; 
and  it  was  not  till  the  reduction  of  the  interior  of  Gaul,  Spain, 
and  Lesser  Asia  that  the  Roman  power  penetrated  far,  in  any 
quarter,  beyond  sight  of  the  friendly  waves  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean.1 While  the  coast  teemed  everywhere  with  the  pro- 
ducts of  industry,  and  civilization,  and  the  hand  and  mind  of 
man  were  as  busy  and  restless  as  the  waves  before  his  feet, 
the  vast  regions  at  his  back  were  abandoned  to  forests  and 
morasses,  the  abodes  of  wild  animals,  and  hardly  less  wild 
barbarians.  In  the  most  flourishing  periods  of  ancient  his- 

1  Cic.  de  Repuhl.  ii.  4. :  "  Ita  barbarorum  agris  quasi  attexta  quaedam 
videtur  esse  ora  Graeciae."  "We,"  says  Plato  (Pheedo,  p.  199,  b.),  "who 
dwell  from  the  Phasis  to  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  inhabit  only  a  small  portion 
of  the  earth,  in  which  we  have  settled  round  the  sea,  like  ants  or  frogs  round 
a  marsh."  Mark  the  contrast  of  national  character  in  these  kindred  images — 
"  Romanus  honos  et  Graia  licentia  " — the  one  majestic  but  rhetorical,  the 
other  genial  though  mean. 


312  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

tory,  the  Mediterranean  may  be  compared  to  the  great  inland 
lakes  of  the  American  continent,  skirted  with  cities,  villages, 
and  clearings,  but  with  illimitable  tracts  of  unredeemed  wil- 
derness stretching  behind  them.  The  latest  conquests  of 
Rome  annexed  the  backwoods  of  Gaul  and  Germany  in  great 
masses,  though  even  here  the  colonization  of  the  Romans, 
and  even  the  occupation  of  the  natives,  was  confined  to  cer- 
tain narrow  tracks  of  internal  communication.  Even  in  the 
age  of  Augustus  hardly  one  place  of  any  political  importance 
lay  at  a  distance  of  twenty  miles  from  the  coasts  of  the  mid- 
land sea.1  The  consolidation  of  the  Roman  power  over  these 
coasts  reduced  the  Mediterranean  to  the  common  highway  of 
all  civilized  nations ;  and  when  the  police  of  these  waters  was 
duly  kept,  as  was  the  case  under  the  emperors,  their  mutual 
communications  were  regular  and  rapid.  In  fair  seasons, 
and  with  fair  winds,  the  navigation  of  the  ancients,  conducted 
by  oars  and  sails,  was  speedier  than  our  own  till  the  inven- 
tions of  the  most  recent  tunes.11  We  learn  that  vessels  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Tiber  could  reach  the  coast  of  Africa  in 
two  days,  Massilia  in  three,  Tarraco  in  four,  and  the  pillars 
of  Hercules  in  seven.  From  Puteoli  the  transit  to  Alexandria 
had  been  effected  with  moderate  winds  in  nine  days ;  from 
Messana  in  seven,  and  once  even  in  six.3  On  the  other  hand, 

1  I  am  speaking  of  course  of  places  which  owed  subjection  to  Rome,  and  I 
except  the  military  colonies  and  frontier  posts  in  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Pannonia. 
I  would  also  except  some  towns  in  the  ulterior  of  Asia  Minor,  which  owed 
their  importance  to  their  position  on  the  route  of  the  overland  traffic  from 
Greece  into  Upper  Asia.  The  political  importance  of  Lugdunum  was  of  later 
growth. 

a  Herodotus,  iv.  86.,  reckons  1300  stadia,  or  162  Roman  miles,  a  good 
twenty-four  hours'  sail  in  summer.  See  Conybeare  and  Howson,  Life  of  St. 
Paid,  ii.  315.  foil,  from  Greswell's  Dissertations,  &c.,  iv.  51Y.  About  seven 
knots  an  hour  before  the  wind,  for  which  the  rigging  with  one  mainsail  is  best 
adapted,  might  be  the  average  speed  of  sailing. 

3  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xix.  1.  Between  the  period  of  Augustus  and  Pliny, 
about  fifty  years,  there  was  probably  a  considerable  advance  in  the  science  of 
navigation.  That  writer  seems  to  attribute  the  increased  speed  in  sailing  to 
the  use  of  the  Egyptian  linen  in  place  of  the  hempen  or  lattin  sails  of  the 
ancients,  which  from  its  lightness  admitted  of  a  much  greater  speed  :  "  super 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  313 

however,  if  the  winds  and  waves  were  adverse,  the  timidity 
and  unskilfulness  of  the  mariners  made  their  voyages  extreme- 
ly slow  and  uncertain.  Caesar  took  twenty-nine  days  to  reach 
the  coast  of  Italy  from  Sardinia,  and  the  Alexandrian  vessel 
in  which  St.  Paul  sailed  from  the  coast  of  Lycia  would  have 
wintered  in  a  haven  of  Crete  in  the  midst  of  its  voyage  to 
Rome.  The  Romans,  indeed,  only  navigated  in  the  finer  parts 
of  the  year.  The  communication  between  Italy  and  Spain  by 
water  was  interrupted  from  the  middle  of  November,  and  only 
recommenced  in  March.1  It  took  as  much  as  three  months 
to  sail  from  Gades  to  Ostia  in  the  face  of  the  east  winds  which 
prevailed  at  a  certain  season.8 

But  with  the  return  of  spring  or  summer  the  glittering 
sea  was  alive  with  vessels.  Rome,  placed  like  a  mightier 
Mexico  in  the  centre  of  her  mighty  lake,  was 

.  -i        •  ••  />  Rome  the  em- 

furmshed  with  every  luxury  and  with  many  ot  poriumofthe 
her  chief  necessaries  from  beyond  the  waters ;  the  Mediter- 
and  cities  on  every  coast,  nearly  similar  in  lati- 
tude and  climate,  vied  in  intense  rivalry  with  each  other  in 
ministering  to  her  appetite.  First  in  the  ranks  of  commerce 
was  the  traffic  in  corn,  which  was  conducted  by  large  fleets 
of  galleys,  sailing  from  certain  havens  once  a  year  at  stated 
periods,  and  pouring  their  stores  into  her  granaries  in  their 
appointed  order.  Gaul  and  Spain,  Sardinia  and  Sicily,  Africa 
and  Egypt  were  all  wheat-growing  countries,  and  all  contri- 
buted of  their  produce,  partly  as  a  tax,  partly  also  as  an 
article  of  commerce,  to  the  sustentation  of  Rome  and  Italy. 
The  convoy  from  Alexandria  was  looked  for  with  the  greatest 
anxiety,  both  as  the  heaviest  laden,  and  as  from  the  length 
of  the  voyage  the  most  liable  to  disaster  or  detention.  The 
vessels  which  bore  the  corn  of  Egypt  were  required  to  hoist 
their  topsails  on  sighting  the  promontory  of  Surrentum,  both 

antennas  addi  velorum  alia  vela,  praeterque  alia  in  proris,  et  alia  in  puppibus 
pandi." 

1  Vegetius,  v.  9. :  "  Ex  die  tertio  iduum  Novemb.  usque  in  diem  sextum 
iduum  Mart,  maria  clauduntur." 

8  Strabo,  iii.  2.  p.  144. 


314  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

to  distinguish  them  from  others,  and  to  expedite  their  arri- 
val. These  vessels  moreover,  according  to  the  institution  of 
Augustus,  were  of  more  than  ordinary  size,  and  they  were 
attended  by  an  escort  of  war  galleys.  The  importance  at- 
tached to  this  convoy  was  marked  by  the  phrases,  auspicious 
and  sacred,  applied  to  it.1  As  it  neared  the  Italian  coast,  its 
swiftest  sailers  were  detached  to  go  forward  and  give  notice 
of  its  approach.  Hence  it  glided  rapidly,  by  night  or  day, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Surrentine  Minerva  on  the  right, 
and  on  the  left  the  lighthouse  of  Capreae."  A  deputation  of 
senators  from  Rome  was  directed  to  await  its  arrival  at  the 
port  where  it  was  about  to  cast  anchor,  which,  from  the  bad 
condition  of  the  haven  at  Ostia,  was  generally  at  this  period 
Puteoli  in  Campania.  As  soon  as  the  well-known  topsails 
were  seen  above  the  horizon  a  general  holiday  was  pro- 
claimed, and  the  population  of  the  country,  far  and  near, 
streamed  with  joyous  acclamations  to  the  pier,  and  gazed  upon 
the  rich  flotilla  expanding  gaily  before  them." 

The  vessels  engaged  in  this  trade,  however  numerous, 
were  after  all  of  small  burden.  The  corn-fleets  did  not  in- 
deed form  the  chief  maritime  venture  of  the  Alexandrians. 

1  "  Felix  embola,  sacra  embola."  Statius  has  a  picturesque  allusion  to  the 
mariner  hailing  the  Isle  of  Capreae  and  pouring  his  libation  before  the  statue 
or  temple  of  Minerva  on  the  opposite  height : 

"  Modo  nam  trans  aequora  tends 

Prima  Dicarchaeis  Pharium  gravis  intuh't  annum : 
Prima  salutavit  Capreas,  et  margine  dextro 
Sparsit  Tyrrhenae  Mareotica  vina  Minervae." 

His  friend  Celer  takes  his  passage  on  board  this  vessel,  on  its  return  voyage, 
to  join  his  legion  hi  Palestine : 

"  Quam  scandere  gaudet 
Nobilis  Ausonise  Celer  armipotentis  alumnus." 

Sylv.  iii.  2.  19. 
9  Stat.  8ylv.  iii.  5.  100. : 

"  Teleboumque  domos,  trepidis  ubi  dulcia  nautis 
Lumina  noctivagse  tollit  Pharus  aemula  Lunae." 

8  Seneca,  Eput.  78.,  in  which  there  is  a  lively  account  of  this  circumstance, 
says,  "  Cum  intravere  Capreas  et  promontorium  ex  quo  alta  procelloso  specu- 
latur  vertice  Pallas,  caeterae  velo  jubentur  esse  contentas,  supparum  Alexan- 
drinarum  insigne  indicium  est." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  315 

The    products   of   India,   which    had   formerly        iCBofcom 
reached  Egypt  from  Arabia,  and  were  supposed  ™erce  ln  the 

5;r  Mediterranean. 

indeed  in  Europe  to  have  come  only  from  the 
shores  of  the  Erythraean  Sea,  were  now  conveyed  direct  to 
Cleopatris  or  Berenice  from  the  mouths  of  the  Indus  and  the 
coast  of  Malabar,  and  employed  an  increasing  number  of  ves- 
sels, which  took  advantage  of  the  periodical  trade  winds  both 
in  going  and  returning.  The  articles  of  which  they  went  in 
quest  were  for  the  most  part  objects  of  luxury;  such  as 
ivory  and  tortoiseshell,  fabrics  of  cotton  and  silk,  Spiceg)  &c , 
both  then  rare  and  costly,  pearls  and  diamonds,  from  the  ^ast 
and  more  especially  gums  and  spices.1  The  consumption  of 
these  latter  substances  in  dress,  in  cookery,  in  the  service  of 
the  temples,  and  above  all  at  funerals,  advanced  with  the 
progress  of  wealth  and  refinement.2  The  consignments  which 
reached  Alexandria  from  the  East  were  directed  to  every 
port  on  the  Mediterranean ;  but  there  was  no  corresponding 
demand  for  the  produce  of  the  West  in  India,  and  these  pre- 
cious freights  were  for  the  most  part  exchanged  for  gold  and 
silver,  of  which  the  drain  from  Europe  to  Asia  was  uninter- 
rupted. The  amount  of  the  precious  metals  thus  abstracted 
from  the  currency  or  bullion  of  the  empire,  was  estimated  at 
100,000,000  sesterces,  or  about  800,000^.  yearly.8  The  reed 
called  papyrus,  the  growth  of  which  seems  to  paperfrom 
have  been  almost  confined  to  the  banks  of  the  E?yPt- 
Nile,  was  in  general  use  as  the  cheapest  and  most  convenient 
writing  material,  and  the  consumption  of  it  throughout  the 
world,  though  it  never  entirely  superseded  the  use  of  parch- 
ment and  waxen  tablets,  must  have  been  immense.4  It  was 

1  The  objects  of  the  Indian  trade  are  enumerated  by  Arrian,  Peripl. 
JErythr.  p.  28.,  and  also  in  the  Digest,  xxxix.  tit.  4.  16. 

1  See  the  account  of  the  funeral  of  Sulla  in  Plutarch,  and  of  Poppaea  (the 
wife  of  Nero)  in  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  xii.  41. 

Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  1.  c. :  "  Minimaque  computatione  millies  centena  millia 
sestertium  annis  omnibus  India  et  Seres  peninsulaque  ilia  (Arabia)  imperio 
stro  adimunt." 

The  papyrus  plant,  Cyperus  papyrus,  is  found  also  on  the  banks  of  a 
ivulet  near  Syracuse,  and  has  sometimes  been  converted  into  paper  there  in 


316  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

converted  into  paper  in  Egypt,  and  thence  exported  in  its 
manufactured  state  ;  but  this  practice  was  not  universal,  for 
we  read  of  a  house  at  Rome  which  improved  on  the  native 
process,  and  produced  what  Pliny  calls  an  imperial  or  noble 
out  of  a  mere  plebeian  texture.1  With  respect  to  other  articles 
of  general  use,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  most  important, 
such  as  corn,  wine,  oil,  and  wool,  were  the  common  produce 
of  all  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  there  was  accord- 
ingly much  less  interchange  of  these  staple  commodities 
among  the  nations  of  antiquity  than  with  ourselves,  whose 
relations  extend  through  so  many  zones  of  temperature. 
Hence,  probably,  we  hear  of  none  of  their  great  cities  be- 
coming the  workshops  or  emporiums  of  the  world  for  any 
special  article  of  commerce.8  The  woollens  in- 

Woollens. 

deed  of  Miletus  and  Laodicea,  together  with 
other  places  of  Asia  Minor,  were  renowned  for  their  excel- 
lence, and  may  have  been  transported  as  articles  of  luxury 
to  distant  parts ;  but  Africa  and  Spain,  Italy  and  parts  of 
Greece,  were  also  breeders  of  sheep,  and  none  of  these  coun- 
tries depended  for  this  prime  necessary  on  the  industry  or 
cupidity  of  foreigners.  The  finest  qualities  of  Greek  and 
Asiatic  wines  were  bespoken  at  Rome,  and  at 
every  other  great  seat  of  luxury.  The  Chian  and 
Lesbian  vintages  were  among  the  most  celebrated,  but  the 
quantity  they  could  produce  must  have  been  comparatively 
limited,  and  an  immense  proportion  of  the  wines  consumed 

modern  times,  as  a  matter  of  curiosity.  See  Wilkinson's  Ancient  Egyptians, 
iii.  148. 

1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xiii.  23.:  "Excepit  hanc  Romae  Fannii  sagax  officina, 
tenuatamque  curiosa  interpolatione  principalem  fecit  e  plebeia."  The  ordinary 
process  of  this  manufacture  was  to  place  two  layers  of  the  thin  slices  of  the 
papyrus  crosswaya,  and  then  paste  and  press  them  together.  But  Fannius,  as 
I  understand  Pliny,  plaited  the  transverse  slices.  The  most  elegant  paper  was 
rubbed  thin  and  polished  with  shells  or  ivory. 

a  Hume,  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Populousness  of  Ancient  Nations,"  has 
the  remark,  which,  as  far  as  I  have  noticed,  is  correct,  that  no  great  city  of 
antiquity  is  said  to  have  acquired  its  importance  from  any  kind  of  manu- 
factures. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  317 

by  the  nations  of  the  Mediterranean  was  undoubtedly  of  home 
growth,  for  few  of  them  were  not  themselves  producers. 
Again,  while  the  clothing  of  the  mass  of  the  population  was 
made  perhaps  mainly  from  the  skins  of  animals,  leather  of 
course  could  be  obtained  abundantly  in  almost  every  locality. 
When  we  remember  that  the  ancients  had  neither  tea,  coffee, 
tobacco,  sugar,  nor  for  the  most  part  spirits  ;  that  they  made 
little  use  of  glass,  and  at  this  period  had  hardly  acquired  a 
taste  for  fabrics  of  silk,  cotton,  or  even  flax,  we  shall  perceive 
at  a  glance  how  large  a  portion  of  the  chief  articles  of  our 
commerce  was  entirely  wanting  to  theirs.  Against  this 
deficiency,  however,  many  objects  of  great  importance  are  to 
be  set.  Though  the  ruder  classes  were  content  with  wooden 
cups  and  platters  fashioned  at  their  own  doors,  the  transport 
of  earthenware  of  the  finer  and  more  precious  kinds,  and 
from  certain  localities,  was  very  considerable.1  Though  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  generally  were  without  some  of  our  com- 
monest implements  of  gold  and  silver,  such  for  instance  as 
watches  and  forks,  it  is  probable  that  they  indulged  even 
more  than  we  do  in  personal  decoration  with  rings,  seals,  and 
trinkets  of  a  thousand  descriptions.  Their  armour  and  even 
their  peaceful  habiliments  were  ornamented  with  the  precious 
metals,  and  altogether  the  traffic  in  this  particular  article, 
which  came  chiefly  from  the  Spanish  mines,  furnished  as  im- 
portant an  element  in  their  commerce  as  in  our  own.  The 
conveyance  of  wild  animals,  chiefly  from  Africa,  for  the  sports 
of  the  amphitheatres  of  some  hundreds  of  cities  throughout 
the  empire,  must  alone  have  given  occupation  to  a  large  fleet 

1  I  believe  it  is  now  understood  that  the  murrha  of  the  Romans  was  not 
porcelain,  as  had  been  supposed  from  the  line, 

"  Murrheaque  La  Parthis  pocula  cocta  focis  "  (Propert.  iv.  6.  26.), 

but  an  imitation  in  coloured  glass  of  a  transparent  stone.  It  is  agreed  that 
the  so-called  Etruscan  ware,  of  which  such  immense  quantities  were  used  in 
Italy,  was  not  an  Etruscan,  but  a  Greek  manufacture,  and  came  not  even  from 
the  Greeks  of  Lower  Italy,  but  from  the  mother  country  beyond  the  sea, 
Macculloch's  Political  Essays,  p.  298. 


318  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  ships  and  many  thousand  mariners.1  NOT  were  the  con- 
voys smaller  which  were  employed  to  transport  marble  from 
the  choicest  quarries  of  Greece  and  Asia  to  many  flourishing 
cities  besides  the  metropolis ;  and  even  the  spoliation  of  the 
forums  and  temples  of  the  East,  not  of  their  pictures  and 
statues  only,  but  of  columns  and  pavements  and  almost  entire 
edifices,  furnished  a  notable  addition  to  the  annual  freights 
of  the  Mediterranean.  The  last  article  of  transport  which 
need  be  enumerated  is  that  of  troops  and  military  stores,  in- 
cluding engines  of  war,  horses,  and  even  elephants,  which 
alone  must  occasionally  have  required  large  naval  armaments  ; 
for  it  was  by  water,  far  more  than  by  land,  that  the  forces 
of  Rome  were  conveyed  to  Greece,  Spain,  and  Asia,  as  well  as 
to  Africa  and  Egypt.  When  we  remember  that  the  Medi- 
terranean was  closed  for  a  third  part  of  the  year,  and  that  all 
this  variety  of  maritime  enterprise  was  crowded  into  a  few 
months  annually,  we  shall  be  disposed  to  regard  with  some 
indulgence  the  bold  hyperbole  of  Juvenal,  that  more  than 
half  mankind  was  actually  upon  the  water.* 

After  due  deduction  for  the  more  contracted  sphere  of 
ancient  commerce,  and  the  lesser  number  of  articles,  for  the 
Effect  of  com-  extent  also  to  which  the  necessaries  and  con- 
™nYty\onth<rng  veniences  of  life  were  manufactured  at  home  in 
empire.  ^e  establishments  of  wealthy  slaveowners,  we 

shall  still  readily  believe  that  the  inter-communication  of  the 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean,  such  as  Corinth,  Rhodes,  Ephe- 
sus,  Cyzicus,  Antioch,  Tyrus,  Alexandria,  Cyrene,  Athens, 
Carthage,  Tarraco,  Narbo  and  Massilia,  Neapolis  and  Taren- 

1  Petron.  Satyr.  119  : 

"Premit  advena  classes  Tigris." 

Such  insignificant  places  as  Dorchester  and  Lillebonne  had  spacious  amphi- 
theatres ;  the  one,  perhaps,  merely  of  turf  with  wooden  sheds,  but  the  other  a 
miniature  colosseum  in  architecture  and  masonry. 
a  Juvenal,  xiv.  275. : 

"  Adspice  portus 

Et  plenum  magnis  trabibus  mare :  plus  hominum  est  jam 
In  pelago." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

turn,  Syracuse  and  Agrigentum,  and  of  all  with  Rome,  must 
have  been  a  potent  instrument  in  fusing  into  one  family  the 
manifold  nations  of  the  empire.  While  each  community  re- 
tained for  the  most  part  its  own  commercial  laws  and  cus- 
toms' duties,  which  operated  to  some  extent  in  impeding  the 
free  interchange  of  their  divers  commodities,  the  direct  traffic 
with  Rome  was  equally  free  to  all ;  nor  were  the  tolls  levied 
on  imports  into  the  capital  either  capricious  or  severe.  Rome, 
conspicuous  on  her  seven  hills,  and  though  situated  fifteen 
miles  inland,  not  perhaps  invisible  from  the  Tyrrhene  waters,1 
became  the  great  central  object  to  which  all  enterprise  and 
commercial  cupidity  looked ;  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  Orientals 
and  the  Greeks,  the  mistress  of  lands  and  continents,  the  lea- 
der of  armies,  and  the  builder  of  roads  was  regarded  as  the 
greatest  of  all  maritime  emporiums,  and  represented  in  their 
figurative  style  as  a  woman  sitting  enthroned  upon  the  waves 
of  the  Mediterranean.3 

The  maritime  aspect  thus  assumed  by  Rome  in  the  eyes 
of  her  subjects  beyond  the  sea,  is  the  more  remarkable  when 
we  consider  how  directly  her  ancient  policy  and  security  of 
habits  were  opposed  to  commercial  development,  merce^nde™" 
Cicero  mentions  it,  among  the  advantages  of  her  the  emPire- 

1  The  cross  of  St.  Peter's  may  be  seen  from  the  sea,  but  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  any  building  of  ancient  Rome  was  equally  lofty. 

3  "  The  great  whore  that  sitteth  upon  many  waters  ....  Alas,  alas ! 
that  great  city  Babylon  ....  the  merchants  of  the  earth  shall  weep  and 
mourn  over  her,  for  no  man  buyeth  of  her  merchandise  any  more  ....  The 
merchandise  of  gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones,  and  of  pearls,  and  of  fine 
linen  and  purple,  and  silk  and  scarlet,  and  all  thyine  wood,  and  all  manner 
of  vessels  of  ivory,  and  all  manner  of  vessels  of  most  precious  wood,  -and  of 
brass  and  of  iron,  and  of  marble,  and  cinnamon,  and  odours,  and  ointments, 
and  frankincense,  and  wine  and  oil,  and  fine  flour,  and  wheat,  and  beasts  and 
sheep,  and  horses  and  chariots,  and  slaves,  and  souls  of  men."  Revel,  rvii.  1., 
rviii.  10.  "That  great  city,  wherein  were  made  rich  all  that  had  ships  in  the 
sea."  The  above  is  perhaps  a  complete  enumeration  of  the  imports  of  the 
port  of  Ostia  for  the  use  of  Rome.  For  the  sense  hi  which  the  opprobrious 
term  ri  irdfvt\  is  applied  to  Babylon,  i.  e.  Rome,  Schleusner  compares  Isaiah 
xxiii.  16.,  where  the  Hebrew  equivalent  is  applied  to  Tyre :  "  Quia  fuit  prop- 
ter  mercaturam  insignis,  et  sicut  meretrix  lUcri  et  quaestus  causa  cum  aliis 
negotiabatur." 


320  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

site,  that  she  was  removed  from  the  sea,  contact  with  which 
was  supposed  to  have  been  fatal  to  her  predecessors  in  em- 
pire, to  Athens  and  Corinth,  Syracuse  and  Carthage.1  The 
landowners  of  Rome,  in  the  highday  of  her  insolent  adole- 
scence, had  denounced  both  commerce  and  the  arts  as  the 
business  of  slaves  or  freedmen.  So  late  as  the  year  535  a 
law  had  been  passed  which  forbade  a  senator  to  possess  a  ves- 
sel of  burden,  and  the  traffic  which  was  prohibited  to  the 
higher  class  was  degraded  in  the  eyes  of  the  lower.2  But  it 
would  not  have  been  necessaiy  to  enact  such  a  restriction 
were  not  the  thirst  of  lucre  already  sapping  the  foundations 
of  the  old  Roman  spirit,  which  had  allowed  itself  no  other 
employment  but  arms  and  agriculture.  The  traders  of 
Rome,  instead  of  connecting  themselves  by  relations  of 
commerce  with  foreign  houses,  preferred,  under  the  pressure 
of  these  limitations,  to  withdraw  beyond  the  sea,  and  devoted 
their  industry  to  the  pursuit  of  wealth  removed  from  the 
watchful  eyes  of  the  censors  and  the  vulgar  prejudices  of  the 
multitude.  The  government,  in  its  barbarous  zeal  for  the 
ancient  traditions,  burnt  the  captured  fleets  of  Carthage  and 
Corinth.  It  sought  to  destroy  the  resources  of  its  enemies' 
naval  power  rather  than  to  increase  its  own.  Possessed  of 
no  native  commerce,  it  beheld  with  indifference  the  dominion 
of  the  seas  passing  into  the  hands  of  pirates ;  nor  did  it  care 
to  create  a  naval  force,  and  assert  its  supremacy  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, till  the  transport  of  its  own  armies  and  their  gen- 

1  Cic.  de  Republ.  ii.  4. 

a  Liv.  xxi.  63. :  "  Ne  quis  senator,  cuive  senatorius  pater  fuerat,  maritimam 
navem,  quae  plus  quam  trecentarum  amphorarum  esset,  haberet.  Id  satis 
habitum  ad  fructus  ex  agris  vectandos :  qusestus  omnis  patribus  indecorus 
Visus  est."  The  measure,  however,  was  strongly  contested,  and  brought 
odium  upon  its  author  Flaminius.  Compare  with  this  interdict  the  limited 
toleration  Cicero  extends  to  the  pursuit  of  commerce :  "  Mercatura,  si  tenuis 
est,  sordida  putanda  est ;  ski  magna  et  copiosa,  multa  undique  apportans,  non 
est  admodum  vituperanda.  Atque  etiam  si  satiata  quaestu,  vel  contenta 
potius,  ut  saepe  ex  alto  hi  portum,  ex  ipso  portu  hi  agros  se  possessionesque 
contulerit,  videtur  jure  optimo  posse  laudari.  Omnium  autem  rerum  ex  quibus 
aliquid  acquiritur,  nihil  est  agriculture  meliua  ....  nihil  homine  libero  dig- 
nius."  De  Offic.  i.  42. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  321 

erals  was  menaced  and  impeded.  When  roused  at  last  to  act 
upon  the  ocean  the  Romans  did  not  leave  their  work  imper- 
fect. The  suppression  of  piracy  by  Pompeius,  the  greatest 
exploit  of  his  life,  was  effected  once  for  all.  Under  the 
empire  the  midland  sea  became  a  safer  highway  than  it  had 
ever  been  before  or,  till  recent  times,  has  been  since ;  and 
the  people  who  dwelt  along  its  shores,  and  daily  went  down 
upon  its  waters,  were  sensibly  convinced  of  the  unity  of  all 
nations  under  the  sway  of  the  universal  ruler. 

It  was  thus  by  following  the  natural  train  of  circumstan- 
ces, and  by  no  settled  policy  of  her  own,  that  Rome  secured 
her  march  across  the  sea,  and  joined  coast  to  R0methecen- 
coast  with  the  indissoluble  chain  of  her  dominion,  n^ionsby11 
On  land,  on  the  contrary,  she  constructed  her  land- 
military  causeways  with  a  fixed  and  definite  purpose.  Her 
continental  possessions,  at  least  in  the  "West,  were  at  this 
time,  for  the  most  part,  still  in  a  state  of  nature  :  the  cultiva- 
tion, as  has  been  said,  of  Gaul  and  Spain,  Ulyria  and  Pan- 
nonia,  even  of  a  great  part  of  Italy  and  Greece,  was  still 
limited  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  coast  and  the  valleys  of 
rivers ;  while  the  upper  country  almost  everywhere  pre- 
sented an  expanse  of  primeval  forest,  broken  sometimes  by 
grassy  prairies,  sometimes  by  rugged  mountains,  and  again 
by  impassable  morasses.  The  population  of  Gaul  ci'ept,  we 
know,  slowly  up  the  channel  of  the  rivers,  and  the  native 
tracks  which  conveyed  their  traific  from  station  to  station 
were  guided  by  these  main  arteries  of  their  vital  system. 
But  the  conquerors  struck  out  at  once  a  complete  system  of 
communication  for  their  own  purposes,  by  means  of  roads  cut 
or  built  as  occasion  required,  with  a  settled  policy  rigidly 
pursued.  These  high  roads,  as  we  may  well  call  them,  for 
they  were  raised  above  the  level  of  the  plains  and  the  banks  of 
the  rivers,  and  climbed  the  loftiest  hills,  were  driven  in  direct 
lines  from  point  to  point,  and  were  stopped  by  neither  forest 
nor  marsh  nor  mountain.  Throughout  their  course  they  were 
studded  with  inscribed  pillars  erected  at  equal  distances  of  a 
thousand  paces :  they  were  furnished  with  stations  or  post- 

VOL.  IV. — 21 


322  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

houses,  and  kept  in  repair  by  tolls  or  rates  in  Italy,  in  the 
provinces,  we  may  suppose,  by  the  forced  labour  of  the  popu- 
lation.1 It  was  no  part  of  the  policy  of  the  conquerors  to 
facilitate  the  intercourse  of  the  natives  of  the  interior,  and 
the  municipal  system  they  introduced  among  them  tended 
rather  to  isolate  each  separate  community  and  make  it  inde- 
pendent of  those  around  it.  But  the  sense  of  unity  and  com- 
mon dependence  on  a  central  authority  was  admirably  main- 
tained by  the  instrument  of  communication  with  Rome,  which, 
in  whatever  quarter  the  subjects  of  the  state  might  cross  it, 
always  pointed  with  a  silent  finger  in  the  direction  of  their 
invisible  mistress.8  Far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  till  it  was 
lost  in  the  remote  horizon,  stretched  this  mysterious  symbol 
of  her  all-attaining  influence ;  and  where  the  sense  failed 
to  follow  the  imagination  came  into  play,  and  wafted  the 
thoughts  of  the  awe-stricken  provincial  to  the  gates  of  Rome 
and  the  pra3torium  of  the  venerable  imperator.  Along  these 
channels,  as  he  knew,  the  armies,  the  laws,  and  the  institutions 
of  the  city  streamed,  in  ceaseless  flow,  to  every  corner  of  the 
earth :  they  were  the  veins  through  which  the  life-blood  of 
the  empire  circulated  from  its  heart,  making  every  pulse  to 
beat  with  unfailing  harmony  and  precision. 

1  Cic.  pro  Font.  4.  The  cross  roads  (vicinales  viae)  were  kept  in  repair 
by  the  owners  of  the  land  through  which  they  ran,  who  were  assessed  thereto 
by  the  magistri  pagorum.  Siculus  Flaccus,  hi  Scr.  R.  Agr.  146.,  ed.  Lach- 
mann. 

3  For  the  rate  of  travelling  by  land,  we  may  notice  that  Caesar  reached 
Geneva  from  Rome  ha  eight  days  (Plut.  Cces.  17.) ;  and  Suetonius  tells  us  that 
he  commonly  performed  one  hundred  miles  in  the  twenty-four  hours.  Jul.  57. 
Tiberius  actually  travelled  two  hundred  miles  hi  that  tune,  when  he  was  hast- 
ening to  Drusus  hi  Germany.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vii.  20.  Cicero  (pro  Rose.  Am. 
19.)  speaks  of  fifty-sir  miles  as  a  good  twelve  hours'  journey  by  the  cisium  or 
post-carriage.  These  are  all  mentioned  as  instances  of  great  speed.  Martial 
gives  the  more  ordinary  rate  of  forty  miles  a  day : 

"  Hispani  pete  Tarraconis  arces. 
Ulinc  Bilbilin  et  tuum  Salouem 
Quinto  forsitan  essedo  videbis." 

(x.  104.) ;  the  distance  of  the  Roman  road  through  Herda  and  Caesar  Augusta 
being  about  two  hundred  miles. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  323 

Julius  Caesar  had  commanded  this  vast  machine  of  life 
and  movement  to  be  delineated  on  a  chart  or  map,  and  the 
work  was  conducted  with  such  minute  and  scru- 

.     .  The  orbla  pic- 

pulous   care,   that   the  three    commissioners   to  tus,  or  map  of 

.  the  empire. 

whom  it  was  entrusted,  were  employed  twenty- 
five  years  in  elaborating  it.1  The  zeal  and  activity  of  Agrippa 
had  watched  over  the  progress  of  the  work,  and  finally 
brought  it  to  completion.  The  science  of  geography  had 
made  but  little  progress  before  the  time  of  Augustus  (there 
was  little  demand  for  it  as  long  as  all  civilized  men  dwelt 
around  the  shores  of  one  marine  basin),  and  the  information 
of  the  few  writers  on  the  subject  was  neither  extensive  nor 
precise.  The  sun  and  stars  were  not  observed,  to  ascertain 
the  position  of  places ;  the  definitions  of  latitude  and  longi- 
tude were  not  invented  till  two  centuries  later.  But  there 
existed  ample  materials  for  a  comprehensive  survey  of  the 
Roman  dominions,  in  an  infinite  mass  of  chorographical  de- 
tails preserved  in  the  local  archives,  by  comparing  and  com- 
bining which,  and  verifying  them  by  observation  and  meas- 
urement, it  was  possible,  with  vast  labour,  and  not  without 
many  inaccuracies,  to  work  out  a  map  of  the  entire  empire  on 
an  uniform  scale.  Of  the  map  which  Agrippa  caused  to  be 
engraved  or  painted  on  the  walls  of  his  portico  at  Rome,  we 
know  only  that  it  represented  by  a  series  of  diagrams  the 
result  of  this  laborious  commission.  It  is  evident,  from  the 
nature  of  the  place  in  which  it  was  exhibited,  that  this  paint- 
ed world,  as  it  was  denominated,  bore  no  resemblance  to  the 
kind  of  delineation  to  which  we  give  the  name.4  It  made,  we 

1  From  Caesar's  consulship,  710,  to  that  of  Saturninus,  735.  (Hoeck, 
Ram.  Gesch.  i.  2.  394),  from  ^Ethicus,  whose  computation,  however,  is  not 
quite  accurate. 

8  The  source  of  our  acquaintance  with  the  map  (orbis  pictus)  of  Agrippa 
is  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  iii.  3. :  "  Cum  orbem  terrarum  orbi  spectandum  proposi- 
turus  esset  ....  is  namque  (sc.  Augustus)  complexam  eum  porticum  ex 
destinatione  et  commentariis  M.  Agrippae  a  sorore  ejus  inchoatam  peregit."  I 
conceive  that  this  map  was  engraved  on  the  wall  of  the  portico,  and  the 
lines  coloured,  h'ke  the  fragment  of  the  well-known  Plan  of  Rome  in  the 
Capitoline  museum.  We  may  get  the  best  idea,  perhaps,  of  its  shape  and 


324:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

must  suppose,  no  attempt  to  express  the  proper  configuration 
of  lands  and  seas,  but  simply  to  represent,  in  a  series  of 
tables,  the  order  and  distances  of  places  upon  every  line  of 
road,  coast,  and  river.  Its  extension  along  the  walls  of  a 
gallery  or  cloister  was  meant  to  keep  all  its  parts  nearly  on 
the  same  level,  in  which  respect  it  may  be  compared  to  the 
sculptured  frieze  of  a  temple,  or  the  pictured  series  of  the 
Bayeux  tapestry.  Such  a  delineation  might  serve  to  amuse 
and  astonish  the  multitude  ;  but  it  could  have  been  of  little 
real  service  without  the  supplement  of  a  written  description. 
This  was  furnished  no  doubt  by  the  commentaries  of  Agrip- 
pa,  which  explained  the  portion  of  the  work  addressed  only 
to  the  eye,  and  to  which  the  great  geographer  Pliny  refers 
as  one  of  his  amplest  and  most  conclusive  authorities.1  We 
are  not,  however,  to  imagine,  that  the  compilers  of  the  Paint- 
ed World  did  no  more  than  measure  itineraries,  and  state  the 
result  in  a  diagram  or  in  a  volume.  They  measured,  we  may 
believe,  not  only  the  roads,  but  the  areas  which  lay  between 
them ;  the  labour  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  produced  no  doubt 
a  complete  registration  of  the  size,  the  figure,  and  the  natural 
features  of  .every  province,  district,  and  estate  throughout  the 
empire.  Every  portion  of  this  immense  work,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed, was  traced  on  vellum,  or  engraved  on  plates  of  brass  : 
if  it  was  too  unwieldy  to  be  comprehended  on  a  single  tablet 
and  exposed  at  one  view  to  the  gaze  of  the  Roman  people, 
it  was  preserved  piece  by  piece  as  an  official  record  for  the 
examination  of  government.  It  may  even  be  conjectured 
that  copies  of  the  whole,  or  of  parts,  were  taken  from  it,  and 
multiplied  for  private  or  official  use." 

character  from  the  curious  specimen  of  ancient  chorography  called  the  Peutin- 
ger  Table,  which  may,  indeed,  be  actually  a  reduction  from  it  adapted  to  a 
later  period. 

1  Pliny  cites  Agrippa  twenty-six  tunes,  according  to  Frandsen  (Agrippa, 
p.  188.),  and  always  in  such  terms  as  he  uses  in  reference  to  known  authors 
of  books.    There  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  of  the  nature  of  the  Commen- 
taries, as  a  work  of  geographical  details. 

2  This  may  be  inferred,  perhaps,  from  the  h'ne  of  Propertius  (iv.  3.  36), 

"  Cogor  et  e  tabula  pictos  ediscere  mundos  ; " 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  325 

"We  shall  find  it  difficult,  indeed,  to  acquiesce  in  the  notion 
that  the  Romans  had  no  chorographic  maps,  when  we  re- 
member the  care  and  exactness  with  which  they 

*     Chorographical 

measured  the  surface  of  every  private  estate,  and  surveys  in  use 
represented  its  configuration.  From  a  very  early 
period  they  had  been  accustomed  to  delineate  the  areas  of 
the  national  domains,  and  of  every  conquest  they  successively 
added  to  them.  The  land  surveyor,  as  has  been  before  re- 
marked, followed  regularly  in  the  track  of  the  imperator,  and 
lent  the  aid  of  his  staff  and  line  to  work  out  the  imaginary 
division  of  allotted  territory  made  by  the  augur  according  to 
the  forms  of  the  Etruscan  discipline.  The  assessment  of  land 
to  the  public  revenue,  in  which  under  the  early  republic  the 
chief  element  of  the  national  resources  consisted,  was  appor- 
tioned with  scrupulous  precision,  and  founded  on  authentic 
registers,  including  maps  as  well  as  tabular  statements. 
The  examination  and  correction  of  these  documents,  from  one 
lustrum  to  another,  constituted  a  critical  part  of  the  censorial 
functions.  Every  fifth  year  the  chorographical  statistics  of 
the  Roman  territory  were  carefully  revised  and  adjusted  to 
the  actual  facts,  and  few  of  these  quinquennial  periods  elapsed 
without  some  extension  of  its  limits,  and  a  corresponding 
addition  to  the  duties  of  the  censorship.  After  the  remis- 
sion, indeed,  of  the  land  tax  upon  the  estates  of  Roman  citi- 
zens, the  state  had  less  interest  in  this  inquisition.  It  would 
seem,  nevertheless,  to  have  been  still  maintained,  while  the 
investigation  became  further  extended  to  the  property  of  the 
subjects  throughout  the  provinces.  The  census  of  the  pro- 

and  from  a  passage  in  Eumenius  (de  Instaur.  Schol.  20,  21.) :  "  Ulic  omnium 
cum  nominibus  suis  locorum  situs,  spatia,  intervalla  descripti  sunt,  instru- 
endae  pueritiae  causa."  These  smaller  maps  would  be  something  different 
from  the  chorographical  itineraries  recommended  by  Vegetius  (de  Re  Mil.  iii. 
6.)  for  military  purposes :  "  itineraria  provinciarum  .  .  .  ut  non  solum  con- 
silio  mentis  verum  aspectu  oculorum  viam  profecturis  eligerent."  The  Itine- 
raries preserved  to  us  were  constructed,  we  may  suppose,  from  the  records  of 
the  roadmakers,  of  which  a  specimen  may  be  seen  in  the  inscription  of  Aquil- 
lius  (Grater,  p.  160.),  stating  the  names  of  places  and  distances  on  the  Way 
he  built  from  Capua  to  Rhegium. 


326  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Census  and  vincials,  however,  was  different  in  some  respects, 
Professio.  and  bore  a  different  name  from  that  of  the  citi- 
zens. It  was  not  sanctified  by  the  same  ceremonies ;  it  did 
not  require  to  be  held  by  a  censor,  but  might  be  taken  by  the 
proconsul;  nor  was  it  necessarily  simultaneous  with  the 
census  at  Rome.  The  provincial  Profession,  as  it  was  desig- 
nated, extended  wherever  the  land  tax  was  exacted ;  and  this 
was  the  case,  not  only  throughout  the  subject  countries  and 
communities,  but  even  in  those  which  were  suffered  to  call 
themselves  autonomous,  provided  they  had  not  the  further 
privilege  of  immunity.1 

The  geographical  science  of  the  Romans  thus  advanced 

in  the  same  proportion  with  their  conquests.     Its  application 

was  carried  out  from  the  banks  of  the  Tiber  to 

Statistical  /.,-•-»,.  -r-i  • 

registers  of       those  of  the  Khme  and  Euphrates  with  the  same 

the  empire.  .    .  ,  . 

rigid  minuteness,  and  its  results  preserved  with 
no  less  scrupulous  solicitude.  It  furnished  an  immense  mass 
of  materials  for  the  mathematicians  to  whom  the  redaction 
of  the  Caesar's  Universal  Geography  was  confided ;  although, 
as  these  professors  of  science  were  Greeks,  it  is  possible  that 
they  may  have  made  little  account  of  the  rough  practical 
drawings  of  the  Roman  surveyors.  These  working  drafts 
were  engraved  upon  brazen  tablets  and  preserved,  together 
with  a  complete  account  of  every  thing  which  constituted 
the  value  of  the  soil,  in  the  archives  of  the  Tabulariuni.8 

1  "In  urbe  Roma  tantum  censum  agi  notum  est:  in  provinciis  autem 
magis  professionibus  utuntur."  Dositheus  in  Corp.  Juris  Ante-Theod.  ed. 
Bcecking,  p.  63.  The  census  as  applied  to  Roman  citizens  had  other  objects 
besides  the  fiscal  It  was  designed  to  fix  the  position  of  the  citizen  in  the 
classes,  and,  accordingly,  in  the  comitia  of  the  centuries,  by  the  amount  of  his 
means ;  and  thus  the  state  acquired  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  numbers 
upon  which  it  could  reckon  for  different  kinds  of  military  service.  The  census 
was  held  hi  Rome,  and  the  citizens  were  summoned  before  the  censors  in  per- 
son. It  may  be  concluded,  therefore,  though  we  have  no  specific  statement 
to  that  effect,  that  it  was  not  applied  beyond  the  bounds  of  Italy,  nor,  till  a 
late  period,  at  any  great  distance  from  Rome.  Hence  the  trifling  addition 
made  to  the  roll  of  citizenship  by  the  nominal  admission  of  the  whole  Italian 
population. 

*  "  Omnes  significationes  et  formis  et  tabulis  aeris  inscribemus,  data,  assig- 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  327 

The  Professions  of  the  provinces  comprehended,  after  the 
manner  of  the  censorial  registers,  not  only  a  numerical  state- 
ment of  the  freemen  and  slaves,  the  women  and  children, 
and  cattle  of  every  description,  not  only  of  the  houses  and 
buildings  also,  but  of  the  acreage  of  every  farm,  with  the 
amount  of  land  under  tillage,  in  pasture  or  in  wood,  and  the 
nature  of  its  plantations,  even  to  the  number  of  vines,  olives, 
and  other  fruit-trees.1  The  elder  Cato  in  his  censorship  had 
demanded  an  exact  inventory  of  clothes,  carriages,  trinkets, 
furniture,  and  implements.11  The  names  of  the  owners  of  land 
on  the  borders  of  each  particular  farm  were  inscribed  on  the 
maps,  as  in  those  of  our  own  surveyors.  A  certain  individuality 
was  attached,  at  least  for  fiscal  purposes,  to  separate  parcels 
of  land.  Each  fundus  or  estate  remained  a  constant  quantity, 
while  its  component  parts  were  sold  or  divided  among  various 
holders,  and  the  fiscal  liabilities  of  the  whole  Caput  were 
apportioned  among  them  respectively.3 

It  was  from  the  precise  information  contained  in  these 
official  registers  that  Augustus,  towards  the  close  of  his 
reign,  drew  up  the  complete  survey  of  the  Roman 
empire,  which  he  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Yes- 
tal  Virgins,  to  be  delivered  to  the  senate  and  his 
successor  after  his  death.4  To  this  table  of  statistics  he  gave 
nata,  concessa,  excepta,  commutata  pro  suo,  reddita  veteri  possessor*,  et  quae- 
cunque  alia  inscriptio  singularum  literarum  in  usu  fuerit,  et  in  aere  permaneat. 
Libros  serfs  et  typum  totius  perticse  lineis  descriptum  secundum  suas  termina- 
tiones,  adscriptis  affinibus,  tabulario  Csesaris  inferemus."  Hyginus,  de  Limit. 
Constit.  ed.  Goes.  193.  ed.  Lachmann,  p.  202.  For  lineis,  Gcesius  reads  linteis, 
which  Bureau  de  la  Malle  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  adopting,  and  thence 
inferring  that  copies  were  taken  off  the  plate  on  linen. 

1  Lactant.  de  Mort.  Persecut.  23. :  "  Agri  glebatim  metiebantur,  vites  et 
arbores  numerabantur,  animalia  omnis  generis  scribebantur,  hominum  capita 
notabantur ;  unusquisque  cum  liberis  cum  servis  aderant." 

9  Plut.  Cat.  Maj.  18. 

1  Compare  Digest,  x.  tit.  i.  4. :  "  Si  alter  fundua  duorum,  alter  trium  sit, 
potest  judex  uni  parti  adjudicare  locum  de  quo  quaeritur,  licet  plures  dominos 
habeat ;  quoniam  magis  fundo  quam  personis  adjudicari  fines  intelliguntur." 

4  Suet.  Oct.  101.,  comp.  28. ;  Tac.  Ann.  i.  11.:  "Opes  publics  contine- 
bantur :  quantum  civium  sociorumque  in  armis :  quot  classes,  regna,  pro- 
vincise,  tributa  aut  vectigalia,  &c."  Egger,  Hist.  d'Auguste,  p.  50.  It  is  not 


328  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  name  of  Breviariutn  or  Rationarium.  It  was  the  ledger 
of  his  household :  but  his  household  comprehended  half  the 
human  race.1  It  embraced  a  succinct  but  authentic  statement 
of  all  the  resources  of  the  Roman  people,  including  indeed 
some  details  which  lay  beyond  the  ample  verge  of  the  census 
and  profession,  as  for  instance  the  number  not  only  of  the 
citizens  and  subjects,  but  also  of  the  allies ;  it  detailed  the 
state  of  the  naval  as  well  as  military  forces  of  the  common- 
wealth, the  condition  of  the  provinces  and  dependencies,  and 
political  system  of  each  several  community,  the  amount  of 
the  public  revenues,  and  proceeds  of  every  import,  together 
with  the  expenses  of  the  general  government.  At  the  foot 
of  this  compendious  synopsis  of  Roman  affairs  the  emperor 
had  added  a  recommendation  to  his  successors  to  abstain 
from  extending  further  the  actual  limits  of  the  empire.  The 
final  impression  left  on  his  mind,  by  the  review  of  his  vast 
possessions,  was  the  solemn  feeling  that  they  were  already  as 
great  as  any  single  man  could  hope  to  wield  for  the  welfare 
of  the  people  committed  to  his  care.2 

This  little  book  might  well  be  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  the 
unity  of  the  empire.  It  comprised  within  the  compass  of  a 
single  manual  the  result  of  a  mass  of  statistical  in- 
formation  derived  from  every  corner  of  the  pro- 
fnfSmation  on  ^i11068?  an^  elaborated  with  a  degree  of  method 
TOpniaticra  °f  an<^  a  completeness  which  has  never  been  rivalled 
even  by  modern  civilization  until  our  own  cen- 
tury. Under  no  less  stringent  and  minute  a  system  would  it 

clear,  however,  whether  the  Breviarium,  the  legacy  of  Augustus,  was  precisely 
the  same  as  the  Rationarium,  or  imperial  ledger. 

1  Augustus  was  sometimes  styled,  half  in  praise,  half  in  mockery,  "  pater 
familias  totius  imperil." 

8  Tac.  I.  c.,  Dion,  Ivi.  33.  The  immediate  source  of  the  emperor's  compi- 
lation was,  no  doubt,  the  work  of  Balbus,  the  chief  of  his  staff  of  surveyors, 
who  had  drawn  up  a  statistical  survey  of  the  provinces.  See  Script.  Rei 
Agr.  p.  239,  ed.  Lachmann.  Comp.  Cassiodorus  Variar.  iii.  52 :  "  August! 
siquidem  temporibus  orbis  Romanus  agris  divisus,  censuque  descriptus  est, 
ut  possessio  sua  nulli  haberetur  incerta,  quam  pro  tributorum  susceperat 
quantitate  solvenda."  Cited  by  Bureau  de  la  Malle,  Econ.  Pol.  des  Rom. 
1193. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  329 

have  been  possible  to  work  the  regulation  for  taxing  the  suc- 
cession to  property,  or  for  apportioning  the  amount  of  tribute 
exacted  from  the  great  corn-growing  countries.  The  details 
upon  which  it  was  based,  engraved,  as  already  stated,  on 
metal  plates,  and  deposited  in  the  vaults  of  the  treasury  be- 
neath the  capitol,  might  have  survived  to  this  day,  had  they 
been  left  to  the  slow  process  of  natural  decay.  But  these 
documents  have  suffered  from  violence  and  conflagration,  at 
a  time  when  they  had  lost  the  interest  they  originally  pos- 
sessed, and  which  in  our  day  they  would  undoubtedly  have 
recovered.  While  Virgil  and  Livy  had  a  thousand  copyists,  no 
one  took  the  pains  to  multiply  the  exemplars  of  these  abstruse 
documents,  which  were  regarded  as  no  better  than  cast-off 
almanacks.  We  would  sacrifice  many  of  the  remains  of 
ancient  literature  for  a  transcript  of  the  Breviarium  of  Au- 
gustus, or  the  tables  of  finance  and  population.  The  rulers 
of  Rome,  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  had  the  means  of 
glancing  at  complete  details  on  the  subject  of  population. 
The  births  and  deaths,  the  marriages  and  divorces,  were  all 
duly  registered.  The  first  enumeration  of  the  Roman  people 
was  attributed  to  the  founder  of  the  state ;  and  a  law,  as- 
cribed to  Servius  Tullius,  required  that  every  birth  should  be 
registered  by  payment  of  a  piece  of  money  in  the  temple  of 
Juno  Lucina.  At  every  death  or  funeral  a  piece  of  money 
was  similarly  offered  at  the  shrine  of  Libitina.  The  assump- 
tion of  the  robe  of  manhood  was  verified  by  a  fee  to  Juven- 
tas.1  The  naturalist  Pliny  illustrated  the  subject  of  human 
longevity  by  extracts  from  a  census  of  Cispadane  Gaul,  from 
which  it  appears  that  every  inhabitant  was  required  to  state 
his  exact  age  to  the  enumerator.9  If  he  allowed  his  imagina- 

1  Dion.  Hal.  iv.  1. 

3  Pliny  refers  to  a  census  under  Vespasian  (circa  A.  D.  70),  as  furnishing 
indisputable  evidence  as  to  vital  statistics  throughout  the  empire.  His  own 
citations  he  confines  to  a  small  district.  At  Parma,  he  tells  us,  three  persons 
returned  themselves  set.  120;  two,  aet.  130;  at  Brixellum,  one,  aet.  125;  at 
Placentia,  one,  set.  131 ;  at  Faventia,  one,  set.  135 ;  at  Veleiacum,  six,  set. 
110,  four,  set.  120,  one,  set.  140.  On  the  whole,  in  the  eighth  region  of  Italy, 
there  were  fifty-four  persons  of  100,  three  of  148  years.  The  figures  are  no 


330  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

tion  to  wander  beyond  the  strict  limits  of  truth  in  giving  his 
reply,  he  was  at  least  liable  to  be  checked  by  the  registers  of 
birth,  which  were  also  regularly  kept.  Every  parent  on 
taking  up  his  new-born  child,  entered  its  birth  in  the  Acta  or 
Journal  of  Public  Events,  which  was  preserved  as  a  state 
document.  As  regards  marriages,  there  may  be  perhaps  no 
direct  evidence  of  the  registration  which  is  here  presumed ; 
but  that  such  was  the  case  in  respect  of  divorces,  is  more  than 
once  expressly  affirmed.1  If  these  testimonies  apply  only  to 
the  case  of  citizens,  we  may  fairly  infer  from  analogy  that 
similar  regard  was  had  to  the  registration  of  the  provincials, 
though  this  may  have  been  a  later  institution.2 

The  numerical  statements  of  the  ancient  authorities  are 

not,  therefore,  to  be  lightly  disregarded,  as  they  evidently 

possessed  sources  of  accurate  information  on  many 

The  Acta,  or       r    .  * 

Journal  of  the  points  of  social  economy,  if  they  chose  to  use 
them.  It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that,  with 
their  loose  notions  of  historical  composition,  they  rarely  took 
pains  to  examine  these  sources  with  care  and  discrimination. 
The  avowed  references  to  the  Official  Journal  of  the  State 
are  meagre  and  obscure.3  The  forgeries  of  some  unscrupu- 

doubt  far  too  high,  but  they  prove  the  main  fact  that  the  inquiry  was  regu- 
larly made.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vii.  50. 

1  Cic.  adDiv.  viii.  7. :  "Paula  Valeria divortium  sine  causa  fecit :  nuptura 
est  D.  Bruto:  nondum  retulerat  (soil,  in  acta)."  Juvenal,  ii.  136. :  "Fient 
ista  palam,  cupient  et  in  acta  referri." 

ix.  84. :  "  Tollis  enim  et  libris  actorum  spargere  gaudes 

Argumenta  viri." 

Digest,  xxii.  tit.  3.  29. :  "  Mulier  gravida  repudiata,  absente  marito  filium 
enixa,  ut  spurium  in  actis  professa  est."  Capitolinus,  Gord.  5. :  "  Filium 
Gordianum  nomine  Antonini  et  signo  illustravit,  quum  apud  prsefectum  aerarii 
more  Romano  professus  filium  publicis  actis  ejus  nomen  insereret." 

*  Capitol.,  M.  Anton.  9. :  "  Jussit  apud  praefectos  aerarii  Saturni  unum- 
quemque  civium  natos  liberos  profiteri,  intra  tricesimum  diem  nomine  imposito. 
Per  provincias  tabulariorum  publicorum  usum  instituit,  apud  quos  idem  de 
originibus  fieret  quod  Romae  apud  prsefectos  aerarii." 

3  These  references  are  collected  by  Leclerc,  Journaux  des  JRomains  181 
foil,  from  Cicero,  Tacitus,  Suetonius,  Seneca,  the  two  Plinys,  Dion,  and  some 
other  writers.  The  facts  elicited  from  them  are,  however,  of  the  most  trifling 
kind. 


UXDER  THE  EMPIRE.  331 

lous  scholars,  who  have  put  forth  pretended  extracts  from 
this  lost  treasure,  may  remind  us  how  much  we  have  suffered 
from  the  disappearance  of  the  genuine  documents.1  Of  the 
actual  nature  of  their  contents,  however,  we  can  nowhere 
obtain  a  clearer  idea  than  from  the  mock  account  of  the 
freedman  Trimalchio,  a  personage  in  the  curious  satire  of 
Petronius,  represented  as  immensely  wealthy,  and  enacting, 
on  a  smaller  but  yet  a  truly  magnificent  scale,  the  part  of  the 
imperial  owner  of  the  Roman  world. 

The  seventh  of  the  kalends  of  Sextilis. —  On  the  estate  at 
Cumce,  belonging  to  Trimalchio,  were  born  thirty  boys,  twenty 
girls  / — were  carried  from  the  floor  to  the  barn  500,000  bush- 
els of  wheat ; — were  broke  500  oxen. — The  same  day  the  slave 
Mithridates  was  crucified  for  blasphemy  against  the  Emperor's 
genius? — The  same  day  was  placed  in  the  chest  the  sum  often 
million  sesterces,  which  could  not  be  put  out  to  use. — The  same 
day  was  afire  in  the  Pompeian  Villa,  which  spread  from  the 
house  of  Nasta  the  bailiff. — '  How  now  f '  exclaimed  Trimal- 
chio ;  '  when  did  I  buy  a  villa  at  Pompeii  f ' — '  Last  year,' 
replied  the  intendant,  '  so  it  has  not  yet  come  into  the  audit.' 
Trimalchio  hereupon  fell  into  a  passion,  and  cried  out — 
*  Whatever  estates  I  buy,  if  lam  not  told  of  them  within  six 


1  The  question  of  these  forgeries,  as  thoy  are  now  admitted  to  be,  was 
warmly  debated  by  the  learned  for  two  centuries.  They  seem  to  be  traced  to 
the  composition  of  Ludovicus  Vives,  a  friend  of  Erasmus. 

a  Petron.  Satyr,  c.  53. ;  vii.  Kal.  Sext. :  "  In  praedio  Cumano  quod  est 
Trimalchionis  nati  sunt  pueri  xxx.,  puellae  xx. :  sublata  in  horreum  ex  area 
tritici  millia  modium  quingenta :  boves  domiti  D. :  eodem  die  Mithridates 
servus  in  crucem  actus  est  quia  Gaii  nostri  genio  maledixerat.  .  Eodem  die  hi 
arcam  relatum  est  quod  collocari  non  potuit  sestertium  centies.  Eodem  die 
incendium  factum  est  in  hortis  Pompcianis,  ortum  ex  aedibus  Xastae  villici. 
Quid  ?  inquit  Trimalchio  :  quando  mihi  Pompeiani  horti  empti  sunt  ?  Anno 
priore,  inquit  actuarius,  et  ideo  in  rationem  nondum  venerunt.  Excanduit 
Trimalchio,  et  Quicunque,  inquit,  mihi  fundi  empti  fuerint,  nisi  intra  sextum 
mensem  sciero,  in  rationes  meae  inferri  veto.  Jam  etiam  edicta  aedilium 
recitabantur  et  saltuariorum  testamenta,  quibus  Trimalchio  cum  elogio  ex- 
hffiredebatur ;  jam  nomina  villicorum  et  repudiata  a  circuitore  liberta  in  bal- 
neatoris  contubernio  deprehensa :  atriensis  Baias  relegatus :  jam  reus  factus 
dispensator  et  judicium  inter  cubicularios  actum." 


332  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

months,  I  will  not  have  them  brought  into  my  accounts  at 
all."1 — Then  were  recited  the  cediles '  (surveyors')  edicts,  and 
the  wills  of  certain  herdsmen,  with  the  excuses  they  made  for 
omitting  to  make  their  master  their  heir  ;  then  ^again  the 
sums  lent  by  his  bailiffs,  and  the  story  of  a  freedwoman,  wife 
of  a  watchman,  divorced  on  being  caught  in  commerce  with  a 
slave  of  the  bath  /  the  case  of  a  porter  relegated  to  Baice  ; — 
of  a  steward  accused  and  examined  before  the  tribunal  of  the 
slaves  and  retainers  of  the  bedchamber. — This  piece  of  banter 
the  author  himself  describes  as  a  counterpart  of  the  official 
register  of  events  ;  and  we  may  trace  in  it  the  way  in  which 
public  receipts  and  expenses,  as  well  as  accidents  and  offences, 
were  recorded  for  the  information  of  the  government  and  the 
amusement  of  the  citizens.1 

But  the  neglect  and  loss  of  these  precious  statistics  have 
left  us  dependent  on  a  few  casual  notices  of  history,  and  such 

inferences  as  may  be  drawn  from  analogy,  on  the 
^population  point  of  chief  interest  to  modern  inquirers,  the 

actual  amount  of  population  of  the  great  Roman 
community.  The  statements  we  have  received  of  the  num- 
ber of  citizens  concern,  of  course,  a  portion  only  of  the  whole 
mass,  nor  have  we  any  direct  means  of  comparing  the  relative 
numbers  of  the  citizens  and  subjects,  the  freemen  and  the 
slaves.  We  must  go  back,  for  our  starting  point  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  this  subject,  which  we  cannot  altogether  fore- 
go, however  little  satisfaction  we  may  expect  to  derive  from 
it,  to  the  well-known  statement  of  Polybius  regarding  the 
number  of  men  available  for  arms  in  the  Italian  peninsula. 
From  this  datum  we  may  proceed  perhaps,  step  by  step,  by 
the  aid  of  inference  and  comparison,  however  imperfect,  to 
deduce  an  approximate  estimate  of  the  population  of  the  Au- 
gustan empire :  it  must,  however,  be  fully  understood  that 
such  an  estimate  can  only  be  put  forth  as  a  conjecture. 

It  appears  then,  that,  in  the  year  of  the  city  529,  the  Ro- 

1  Comp.  Cicero  (ad  Div.  viii.  7.),  writing  to  Caelius  from  Cilicia,  for  the  talk 
of  the  day  recorded  in  the  Acta.  Plin.  Ep.  ix.  15. :  "  nobis  sic  rusticis  urbana 
acta  rescribe."  Leclerc,  Journcmx,  p.  21Y.  • 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  333 

mans  and  their  allies  the  Campanians  could  furnish  273,000 
men  of  all  arms.    The  rest  of  Italy  below  the 
Rubicon,  with  the  exclusion,  however,  of  some  Poiyb*n»  ro- 
of the  wilder  districts,  could  furnish   477,000.  population.^ 
These  numbers  are  understood  to  comprise  all    taly' 
the  men  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and  sixty.1    But 
modern  tables  of  life  show  that  a  sum  of  750,000  of  this  age 
implies  a  total  of  1,332,902  males ;  and  this  number  must  be 
doubled  to  obtain  the  amount  of  both  sexes  together,  which 
would  raise  the  gross  total  of  the  free  native  population  to 
2,665,804."    To  this  must  be  added,  the  number  of  slaves,  as 
to  which  it  would  be  fruitless  to  hazard  a  definite  conjecture, 
and  also  that  of  foreigners,  which  is  no  less  uncertain.     Some 
allowance  is  further  to  be  made  for  the  barbarians  of  the 
forests  and  mountains,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  population, 
scanty  as  it  doubtless  was,  of  the  wild  peninsula  of  Bruttium, 
who  could  not  be  counted  on  for  the  defence  of  the  common 
soil  of  Italy,  and  are  accordingly  omitted  from  the  specifica- 
tion of  Polybius. 

In  the  sixth  century  of  the  city  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  the  slaves  bore  any  large  proportion  to  the  free  popula- 
tion of  Italy.  The  cultivation  of  the  soil  was  still 

„  ,    „         ,  „,,  ..    Historical 

performed  for  the  most  part  by  free  labour,  and  statements 

1  Polyb.  ii.  24.,.where  twenty  thousand  arc  to  be  deducted  from  his  total 
for  Cisalpine  contingents.    We  may  rely  with  sufficient  confidence  on  the 
accuracy  of  the  enumeration  of  the  Romans,  and  perhaps  of  their  allies  ;  for 
that  of  the  rest  we  must  be  content  with  the  fact  that  the  author  was  satisfied 
with  it.    The  numbers  of  Polybius  are  very  nearly  verified  by  Diodorus  and 
Pliny.    For  the  limits  of  military  age,  see  Bureau  de  la  Malle,  Econ.  Pol. 
L  217. 

2  "  D'apres  les  tables  de  population  calcule'es  par  M.  Duvillard,  et  corrigees 
par  M.  Mathieu  (Annuaire  du  Bureau  des  Longitudes  pour  1839,  p.  178. 
foil.),  le  nombre  des  individus  de  tout  sexe  de  dixt-sept  a  soixante  ans,  pour 
uue  population  de  10,000,000,  est  de  5,626,819."      De  la  Malle,  i.  287.    This 
is  a  proportion  of  fourteen  to  twenty-five ;  and  the  fighting  men,  whom  we 
sometimes  roughly  estimate  at  one  fourth  of  a  population,  are  more  correctly 
seven  twenty-fifths.    Supposing  male  and  female  births  to  be  nearly  equal, 
against  the  drain  of  men  by  war  in  a  warlike  age,  Dureau  de  la  Malle  sets  the 
loss  of  female  children  by  exposure  at  birth. 


334  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

bearing  on  tho    servile  hands  were  chiefly  employed  in  menial 

population  of  ,    . 

Italy.  attendance  on  the  wealthier  classes,  and  in  some 

kinds  of  handicraft  and  professions.  Slaves  were  as  yet  gen- 
erally obtained  by  war,  but  the  condemnation  of  a  whole 
population  to  bondage  was  comparatively  rare,  and  reserved 
for  cases  where  the  greatest  severity  was  required.  The 
number,  however,  both  of  slaves  and  foreigners  was  undoubt- 
edly more  considerable  in  the  Hellenic  cities  of  Magna  Grse- 
cia ;  while  in  the  interior  and  at  the  extremities  of  the  coun- 
try there  existed  divers  native  tribes,  in  a  state  of  wild  and 
isolated  independence.  The  density  of  population  varied 
exceedingly  in  different  parts  of  the  peninsula.  Some  regions 
swarmed  with  life.  The  numbers,  indeed,  ascribed  to  the 
great  Hellenic  cities  of  the  south-east  are  extravagant,  and 
generally  we  may  observe  that  less  reliance  can  be  placed  in 
these  matters  upon  Greek  than  Roman  figures  ;  *  but  we  can 
hardly  reject  the  express  statements  we  have  received  of  the 
number  of  organized  communities  within  the  narrow  bounds 
of  Latium.  Between  the  Apennines,  the  Tiber,  and  the  pro- 
montory of  Circeii,  a  tract  but  sixty  miles  in  length  and  per- 
haps thirty  in  breadth,  the  size  of  an  English  county,  there 
was  a  confederation  of  states,  which  was  assumed  to  be  always 
thirty,  though  the  number  might  from  time  to  time  vary." 
The  extreme  smallness  of  these  numerous  communities  is 
self-evident :  each  was  composed  of  a  few  thousand,  or  even 
a  few  hundred  warriors,  who  nestled  on  the  narrow  ledge  of 
a  scarped  hill,  descending  daily  into  the  plain  to  scratch  the 
soil  with  spades  and  harrows ;  a  soil,  however,  for  the  most 
part  of  exceeding  fertility,  which  could  easily  have  been  made 
to  support  a  swarm  of  industrious  cultivators.  Nevertheless 
the  aggregate  of  the  population  in  the  most  favoured  portions 


1  For  the  exaggerated  numbers   ascribed  to  Sybaris  and  Crotona,  see 
Diodorus  (xii.  9.),  and  even  the  more  judicious  Strabo  (vi.  1.  p.  263.).    Similar 
exaggerations  are  current  with  regard  to  Syracuse  and  Agrigentum. 

2  Dion.  HaL  Ant.  Rom.  vi.  63. ;  Comp.  v.  61.,  where  he  enumerates 
twenty-four.     Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  iii.  9.)  gives  the  name  of  fifty-three  towns  of 
Latium  which  had  become  extinct  in  his  time. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  335 

of  Italy  must  have  been  very  considerable.  Far  the  larger 
part  of  the  peninsula,  however,  was  as  yet  unsubdued  by  the 
husbandman.  In  early  times  Italy,  now  one  of  inferences 
the  least  wooded  countries  of  Europe,  was  cov-  an°dphy™clf 
ered  almost  throughout  with  forests.  Many  of  features- 
the  summits  of  Rome  derived  their  names  from  the  woods 
which  originally  shaded  them,  while  the  Capitoline  and  Quiri- 
nal  were  separated  by  a  thick  grove,  and  the  Velabrun  was 
an  almost  impassable  jungle.1  Such  was  the  scene  which  the 
poet  of  the  ^Eneid  recalled  to  his  imagination  in  depicting 
the  first  landing  of  the  Trojans  on  the  destined  site  of  em- 
pire. Virgil's  landscapes,  it  will  be  remembered,  are  gen- 
erally umbrageous.  The  forest  of  Sila  occupied  perhaps  one 
half  of  Lucania.  Large  tracts  even  in  Latium  were  covered 
with  the  bay-trees  of  Laurentum,  the  Arician  ilexes,  and  the 
Gallinarian  pine  forests.  Even  within  the  lifetime  of  Au- 
gustus, Varro  could  say  of  Italy  that  it  was  so  thickly  set 
with  trees  as  to  appear  like  one  continuous  orchard.2  Diony- 
sius,  the  historian,  remarks  the  convenience  of  its  rivers  for 
the  transport  of  wood  from  the  interior,  and  the  Romans 
gave  their  cross  roads  the  name  of  wood  ways,  on  account  of 
the  timber  which  they  were  used  in  conveying.8  But  the 
streams  of  Italy  have  long  ceased  to  be  navigable,  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  foliage  which  attracted  moisture  for 
their  supply,  the  value  of  which  for  this  purpose  the  Romans 
seem  to  have  recognised  in  appointing  special  officers  to  pre- 
serve their  forests,  and  perhaps  in  placing  them  under  the 
protection  of  religion.  The  extirpation  of  this  wild  vegeta- 
tion has  led  to  further  changes  in  the  climate  of  these  regions, 

1  Hence  the  names  of  the  Viminal,  the  Fagutal,  the  Querquetulan,  and 
perhaps  the  Esquiline.  A  part  of  the  Aventine  was  called  Lauretum.  Dion. 
Hal.  Ant.  Rom.  iii.  43. 

8  Varro  de  Re  Rust.  i.  2.  Many  places  now  bare  of  trees  retain,  it  is  said, 
a  name,  such  as  Frassineto,  Saliceto,  Laureto,  which  shows  that  they  were 
formerly  remarkable  for  their  groves.  See  Moreau  de  .Tonne's,  Statist,  des 
Peup.  Andens,  p.  326. 

1  Via  vicinalis  and  via  lignaria  are  the  common  names  for  by-roads  in  the 
writers  de  Re  Agraria. 


336  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  winters  being  now,  as  is  generally  believed,  less  rigorous 
than  in  ancient  times.  Even  in  the  age  of  Augustus  the  pro- 
gress of  this  change  was  observable.  Columella  refers  to  it 
in  explanation  of  the  fact  that  vines  and  olives  grew  in  his 
day  hi  many  spots  which  they  formerly  refused  to  inhabit. 
But  the  change  in  this  respect  has  probably  been  still  greater 
in  other  countries  of  Europe  which  the  Romans  regarded  as 
far  colder  than  their  own.  Strabo  assures  us  that  the  north 
of  Spain  was  thinly  peopled  on  account  of  the  severity  of  the 
climate.  A  Gaulish  winter  was  proverbial  for  its  intensity, 
and  the  central  latitudes  of  the  continent  were  described  as 
suffering  a  perpetual  frost. 

The  change  which  the  lapse  of  centuries  has  evidently 
effected  in  the  face  of  the  country,  in  its  climate,  and  conse- 
quently hi  its  capacity  for  cultivation,  presents 

Basis  for  an 

approximate      alone  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  our  obtaining 

calculation  of  •        i  i    j  /•  .  v.  /?  • , 

the  population  any  precise  knowledge  of  the  amount  01  its  an- 
cient production,  from  whence  to  calculate  ap- 
proximately the  numbers  of  its  population.  Nor,  indeed,  are 
there  any  accounts  of  its  bearing  at  the  present  day,  from 
which,  supposing  we  could  form  a  tolerable  estimate  of  these 
physical  changes,  we  might  draw  a  reasonable  inference  on 
this  point.  Even  were  there  such,  we  should  still  be  at  a 
loss  to  compare  with  accuracy  the  relative  consumption  of 
different  kinds  of  food  at  the  one  time  and  the  other.  We 
shall  be  inclined  perhaps  to  surmise  that  the  ancient  Italians 
were  greater  consumers  of  meat  than  their  descendants  ;  first, 
from  the  large  districts  of  their  country  which  were  entirely 
devoted  to  feeding  swine ;  secondly,  from  the  numbers  of 
the  nobler  animals  which  were  reared  for  sacrifice ;  and 
again,  from  the  importance  they  attached  to  maintaining  at 
its  height  the  physical  strength  of  their  martial  populations. 
But  waiving  all  such  considerations,  the  most  suitable  basis 
we  can  adopt  for  an  inquiry,  which  is  too  interesting  to  be 
altogether  omitted,  is  that  assumed  by  a  modern  writer  of 
high  authority  on  such  subjects — a  comparison,  namely,  of 
Roman  or  peninsular  Italy  with  the  south-eastern  portion  of 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  337 

modern  France,  which  in  extent  and  climate,  in  the  character 
of  its  soil  and  variety  of  elevation,  bears  the  nearest  analogy 
to  it.1  Assuming  these  two  regions  to  comprise  a  like  pro- 
portion of  productive  soil,  and  that  Italy,  in  the  time  of  Au- 
gustus, with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  was  cultivated  to 
the  same  extent,  and  with  the  same  industry  as  this  part  of 
France  at  the  present  day,  we  may  estimate  the  breadth  of 
land  under  corn  and  green  crops  annually  in  the  peninsula 
below  the  Rubicon  at  about  two  millions  and  a  half  of  hec- 
tares, a  figure  which  may  be  multiplied  by  2'333  for  the  num- 
ber of  acres,  or  by  four  for  that  of  Roman  jugera."  This 
extent  of  land  bears  a  ratio  of  less  than  one  fifth  to  the  whole 
area.  Our  next  step  must  be  to  ascertain  the  production  of 
this  amount  of  cultivated  soil.  We  must  inquire  the  quan- 
tity of  seed  used,  and  the  proportion  of  the  crop  to  the  seed. 
On  both  these  points,  the  ancients  have  given  us  some  definite 
statements,  which  will  bear  comparison  with  modern  expe- 
rience. Five  modii,  or  one  bushel  and  a  quarter,  it  is  said, 
was  the  seed  required  for  each  jugerum,  and  we  may  infer, 
as  a  mean  between  various  statements,  that  the  average  ratio 
of  production  was  six-fold,  a  ratio  which  holds  very  closely 
in  the  district  of  France  under  comparison.8  Accordingly, 
the  produce  of  each  jugerum  is  to  be  rated  at  thirty  modii, 

1  Wallon,  Hist,  de  V Esclavage,  &c.  ii.  76.  foil.  Comp.  Bureau  de  la  Malle, 
Econ.  Pol.  i.  281.  foil.  The  S.  E.  portion  of  France  is  limited  by  the  meridian 
of  Paris  and  the  forty-seventh  degree  of  latitude  N. 

3  The  statistical  tables  of  France  for  1840  give  the  area  of  the  S.  E.  of 
France  at  18,287,463  hectares,  and  in  cereal  cultivation  2,490,591  beet.  The 
area  of  the  Italian  peninsula  is  stated  by  Wallon  at  7774  geogr.  leagues 
square,  or  15,356,109  hect.  Hence  the  quantity  in  cultivation  is  estimated  at 
2,878,336  hect.,  Wallon,  1.  c.  But  this  author,  following  De  la  Malle,  has  for- 
gotten that  Modena,  Lucca,  the  Bolognese,  the  Ferrarese,  and  part  of  the 
Romagna,  belong  to  the  Roman  Cisalpine.  It  appears  from  Maltebrun's 
tables,  that  Roman  Italy,  south  of  the  Rubicon  and  _<Esar,  contains  about 
6,800  square  leagues,  which  is  about  13,450,000  hectares,  of  which,  according 
to  the  proportion  in  France,  we  may  compute  that  2,500,000  are  cultivated. 

9  Comp.  Varro,  R.  R.  i.  44. ;  Cic.  ii.  in  Verr.  iii.  4.     The  modius  equals 
2  gallons  or  a  quarter  of  a  bushel.    The  authorities  for  the  individual  con- 
sumption are  Cato,  R.  R.  66. ;  Sallust,  fragm.  3. :  Seneca,  Ep.  80.  9. 
VOL.  iv. — 22 


338  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

from  whence  the  whole  amount  of  the  Italian  harvest  may  be 
easily  estimated.  Another  mean  must  next  be  taken  from 
the  data  we  possess  regarding  the  quantity  of  cereal  food 
consumed  by  the  people  of  divers  ages  and  classes,  by  free 
men  and  slaves,  by  women  and  children ;  and  when  this  is 
fixed  at  three  modii,  or  three  quarters  of  a  bushel  per  head 
per  month,  or  nine  bushels  per  head  for  the  year,  we  shall 
arrive  at  a  total  population  of  about  seven  millions ; 1  a  num- 
ber which  may  seem  on  many  accounts  to  deserve  our  confi- 
dence, being  far  removed  from  the  exaggerations  of  some 
modern  inquirers,  who  would  raise  it  to  seven-and-twenty  or 
even  forty  millions,  and  from  the  far  more  conscientious  cal- 
culations of  another,  who,  by  an  oversight,  as  it  seems,  has 
reduced  it  to  less  than  five.*  If  such  was  the  amount  of  the 
Italian  production  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  and  such  the 
number  of  the  mouths  it  could  feed,  we  must  still  make  an 
arbitrary  addition  to  the  population  for  the  multitudes  which 

1  The  calculation  will  stand  thus : — 

2,500,000  hectares. 
4 


1 0,000,000  jugera. 
30 


300,000,000  produce  hi  modii. 
50,000,000  deduct  for  seed. 


Divide  bv  36   for  annual  con- ) 
sumption  of  modii  per  head...  f 

6,945,000 

Or,  in  round  numbers,  7,000,000  population. 

*  The  forty  millions  are  assigned,  if  I  remember  right,  by  Moreau  de 
Jonnes  in  his  Statistique  des  Ancient  PeupUs,  a  work  of  little  value  except  as  a 
collection  of  texts,  to  the  whole  of  Italy  within  the  Alps ;  the  twenty-seven  is 
the  result  arrived  at  by  Blair,  hi  his  Essay  on  Ancient  Slavery,  but  I  do  not 
know  exactly  within  what  limits  he  applies  it  On  the  other  hand,  Bureau  de 
la  Malle,  who  gives  five  millions  for  peninsular  Italy,  has  made  the  error  of 
assigning  four  modii  per  month,  the  consumption  of  a  full-grown  man,  as  the 
average  of  the  whole  population.  His  peninsular  Italy  also  exceeds,  as  shown 
in  a  previous  note,  the  true  limits.  Wallon,  taking  the  average  of  individual 
consumption,  as  ascertained  from  the  French  tables,  arrives  at  the  number 
of  8,114,534  for  Italy  ;  but  he  also  takes  a  more  extended  Italy  than  mine. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  339 

were  supported  within  the  peninsula  by  importation  of  grain 
from  abroad.  This  importation,  which  had  been  resorted  to, 
more  or  less,  from  an  early  period,  first  became  fixed  and 
constant  about  this  time ;  but  we  may  believe  it  had  by  no 
means  yet  reached  its  maximum.1  The  cultivation  of  Italy 
diminished  as  the  foreign  supply  increased ;  and  if  we  assume 
that  under  Augustus  food  was  then  furnished  for  two  addi- 
tional millions,  this  total  of  nine  millions  was  the  largest 
number  of  inhabitants  ever  collected  in  ancient  times  between 
the  Rubicon  and  the  Straits  of  Messana.'  It  is  not,  however, 
without  hesitation  that  I  pay  so  much  regard  to  the  strong 
expressions  of  the  ancients,  loose  and  fallacious  as  they  often 
are,  regarding  the  large  amount  of  this  importation,  and  the 
dangers,  not  of  scarcity  only,  but  starvation,  which  they  sup- 
posed to  impend  on  its  failure  or  deficiency.* 

The  resources  of  Italy  had  sufiered  severely  during  the 
civil  commotions  ;  yet  not  much  more,  perhaps,  than  through- 
out the  chronic  state  of  war  and  devastation 

.  .  The  population 

which  had  continued  from  the  commencement  ofitaiycom- 


1  It  appears  from  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  il.  16.,  and  AureL  Victor,  Epit.  2., 
that  Egypt  and  Africa  supplied  Italy,  the  one  with  twenty  the  other  with  forty 
millions  of  modii.     This  amount  would  feed  (at  thirty-six  modii  per  annum) 
1,666,666  individuals.     To  this  is  to  be  added  the  importation  from  Sicily, 
Sardinia,   and  perhaps  other  quarters.     The  foreign  supply  had  increased 
under  the  successors  of  Augustus.    Tac.  Ann.  vi.  13.    There  is  a  fair  pre- 
sumption that  not  Rome  only,  but  other  Italian  cities  were  partly  fed  from 
abroad. 

2  Maltebrun  gives  the  population  of  the  peninsula  in  1826 : — 

Naples  (without  Sicily) 6,690,000 

States  of  the  Church  (omitting  Bologna,  &c.)  about 2,000,000 

Tuscany 1,275,000 


8,965,000 

3  It  should  be  observed,  however,  that  the  failure  of  a  portion  of  the  usual 
supply  does  not  imply  the  abstraction  of  a  similar  proportion  from  each  indi- 
vidual's consumption.  In  time  of  scarcity  a  large  proportion  of  the  popula- 
tion pay  more  for  their  food,  but  continue  to  consume  as  much  as  ever ;  the 
loss  in  quantity  falls  entirely  upon  the  remainder.  Hence  the  importation 
may  have  been  comparatively  small,  and  yet  the  consequences  of  a  deficiency 
may  have  been  sufficiently  alarming. 


34:0  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

pared  with  that  of  its  records.     If  its   sufferings  at  the  later 

of  the  prov- 

incea.  epoch  had  been  exceptional,  attempts  had  been 

made  to  compensate  them  by  exceptional  methods.  The 
establishment  of  military  colonies,  and  the  constant  influx 
of  slave  labour,  had  tended  to  restore  the  level  of  its  popula- 
tion, and  the  centre  of  the  empire  undoubtedly  partook  large- 
ly of  the  general  prosperity,  during  the  fifty  years'  peace  of 
the  Augustan  age.  We  may  regard  Italy,  therefore,  at  this 
period,  as  truly  that  which  her  fond  children  represented  her, 
the  garden  of  the  world ;  and  we  cannot  pretend  to  calculate 
the  population  of  any  other  region  on  a  similar  basis,  as  none 
other,  at  least  in  Europe,  approached  so  nearly  to  a  uniform 
state  of  cultivation.  The  resources  of  the  Cisalpine  territory, 
which  has  been  excluded  from  the  above  inquiry,  were  not 
regarded  as  equally  developed  with  those  of  peninsular  Italy. 
The  valley  of  the  Po  was  usually  contrasted  with  the  region 
of  the  Apennines,  as  a  land  of  pasture  rather  than  arable  soil ; 
though  it  is  impossible  that  with  so  many  cities,  some  of 
them  very  considerable,  it  could  have  neglected  the  produc- 
tion of  grains  for  the  food  of  man.  The  surface  of  this  dis- 
trict is  to  that  of  the  peninsula  in  the  proportion  of  more 
than  six  to  seven,  and  we  will  assume  its  population  to  be 
one  half  only,  or  about  four  and  a  half  millions.'  The  inhabi- 
tants of  Sicily,  remarkable  for  its  fertility  and  the  number 
and  opulence  of  its  cities,  cannot  be  set  at  less  than  two  mil- 
lions.* To  Sardinia  and  Corsica  together,  however,  we  must 

1  Maltebrun  gives  the  Italian  areas,  in  square  geographical  leagues,  as 
follows : — 

The  Cisalpine  region  (Piedmont,  Lombardy) 6000^ 

Add  for  the  duchies  and  part  of  Papal  States 1000) 

{Tuscany 1100  \ 
States  of  the  Church 1850  >•     6860 
Naples 3910) 

Sicily 1610 

2  Bureau  de  la  Malle  has  gone  into  this  inquiry,  and  his  result  is  only 
twelve  hundred  thousand  (Econ.  Pol.  iL  380.).    The  correction  I  have  applied 
is  nearly  the  same  as  Wallon  has  shown  to  be  applicable  to  his  estimate  for 
Italy.    My  reference  to  De  la  Malle's  book  is  to  an  edition  of  1840;  I  do  not 
know  whether  it  has  since  been  revised. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  341 

not  assign  more  than  one  fourth  of  this  amount.  Gaul  beyond 
the  Alps  was  doubtless  for  the  most  part  very  thinly  peo- 
pled. To  a  great  extent  it  was  covered  by  primeval  forests, 
but  these  were  diversified  by  large  tracts  of  open  plain  and 
prairie ;  and  when  Strabo  speaks  of  the  whole  country  as 
generally  cultivated,  he  must  mean  that  it  was  not  intersected 
by  great  mountain  regions  like  Spain  or  Thrace,  by  salt  or 
stony  deserts  like  Asia  Minor,  nor  by  basins  of  sand  like 
Egypt  and  Numidia.  I  have  shown  some  reasons  for  guess- 
ing its  population  at  six  millions  in  the  time  of  Caesar ;  and 
though  it  advanced  rapidly  in  wealth  and  industry  under  his 
successor,  it  must  have  taken  many  years  to  recover  the  deso- 
lation it  underwent  in  the  struggle  against  the  conqueror.1 
A  large  part  of  Spain  had  enjoyed  tranquillity  for  a  con- 
siderable period,  and  its  resources  had  been  actively  devel- 
oped by  the  skill  and  cupidity  of  Roman  settlers.  Its  inhabi- 
tants, we  may  suppose,  were  more  numerous  than  those  of 
Gaul,  but  much  less  so  than  those  of  Italy.  We  may  set 
them,  therefore,  at  seven  or  perhaps  eight  millions.  The 
European  provinces  north  and  east  of  the  Adriatic,  compri- 
sing Achaia  and  Macedonia,  with  the  Greek  islands,  Ulyria 
and  Dalmatia,  Pannonia,  Noricum,  Vindelicia,  and  Rhsetia, 
Thrace  and  Moasia,  somewhat  exceed  Gaul  in  extent ;  and 
the  superior  populousness  of  the  first  of  these  districts,  though 
far  fallen  from  their  palmiest  days,  compensating  for  the 
barrenness  of  others,  we  may  reckon  for  them,  on  the  whole, 
an  aggregate  of  ten  millions.  The  provinces  of  Asia,  how- 
ever, were  unquestionably  far  more  densely  peopled  than 
almost  any  portion  of  Europe.  They  were  filled  with  innu- 
merable cities,  the  hives  of  commerce  and  manufactures. 
Though  they  had  suffered  from  the  devastation  of  many 
transient  conquests,  they  had  for  centuries  hardly  engaged 

1  Though  the  tribute  or  military  contribution  of  Gaul  was  light,  we  may 
imagine  how  severe  must  have  been  the  pressure  on  its  industry  from  the 
requisition  of  men,  animals,  and  material  of  all  kinds  for  the  vast  establish- 
ments of  the  Rhenish  camps.  Tacitus  says,  at  a  little  later  period,  "  Tessas 
Gallias  mini  strand  is  equis." 


342  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

in  warfare  themselves ;  they  had  maintained  no  standing 
armies  of  idle  consumers,  and  had  countenanced  no  preju- 
dices against  commerce  and  labour.  If  they  doubled  Italy 
in  extent,  they  more  than  doubled  her  in  the  number  of  their 
inhabitants.1  This  will  raise  the  aggregate  for  Europe  and 
Asia  to  near  seventy  millions.  The  provinces  of  the  last  of 
the  three  continents  had  been  far  less  harassed  by  war  and 
spoliation ;  nevertheless,  under  the  listless  sway  of  the  Ptole- 
mies, Egypt,  we  are  told,  had  fallen  to  one  half  of  her  earlier 
population.  Diodorus  assures  us  that  her  people  did  not  ex- 
ceed three  millions ;  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  he 
includes  the  Greek  residents ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  he  takes  no  account  of  the  slaves,  or  of  the  Jews,  who 
alone  formed,  perhaps,  a  fourth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Nile 
Valley."  "We  may  believe,  moreover,  that  the  resources  of 
this  favoured  region  grew  as  rapidly  under  the  rule  of  the 
Cffisars,  as  they  had  fallen  under  its  Macedonian  tyrants.  The 
districts  of  Cyrene  and  Africa  remain  still  to  be  estimated : 
the  former  small  in  extent,  but  renowned  for  exuberant  fer- 
tility, and  the  commercial  activity  of  its  cities,  which  had 
suffered  no  check  since  the  suppression  of  the  Cilician  piracy ; 
the  latter  long  rejoicing  in  the  impulse  given  to  its  industry 
by  the  demands  of  Italy.  The  returns  from  these  regions 
may  swell  the  general  account  to  a  total  of  eighty-five  mil- 
lions for  the  population  of  the  empire  of  Augustus,  including 
both  sexes,  all  ages,  and  every  class  of  inhabitants. 

It  may  be  observed,  in  conclusion,  that  the  portion  of  the 
globe  which  constituted  this  empire  far  exceeds  at  the  pre- 
sent day  the  numbers  thus  assigned  to  it  at  the 

Ancient  and  J  ° 

modem  popu-    period  under  consideration  ;   at  the  same  tune, 

1  I  omit  the  region  of  Palestine,  which  was  only  temporarily  incorporated 
in  the  empire  in  the  latter  years  of  Augustus. 

a  Diodor.  Sic.  L  31. ;  referred  to  in  chap.  xxviii.  His  expression  is  o-^iras 
Aadj ;  but  Wesseling  asserts  that  the  reading  is  uncertain.  Fifty  years  after 
the  death  of  Augustus,  the  population  of  Egypt,  inclusive  of  Alexandria,  is 
stated  by  Josephus  at  seven  millions  and  a  half  of  tribute  payers.  Bell.  Jud. 
ii.  16.  4.  There  seems  to  be  no  proof  that  the  poll-tax  was  extended  to 
slaves. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  34.3 


the  revolutions  which  have  swept  at  intervals  B 
over  both  the  East  and  the  West  have  reversed  ^as  compared. 
the  social  importance  of  the  two  great  spheres  of  the  Ca3sa- 
rean  dominions :  the  districts  of  Asia  and  Africa,  which  we 
have  just  surveyed,  at  that  period  the  most  flourishing  of  all, 
have  now  sunk  almost  to  the  lowest  depths  of  a  progressive 
decay ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  European  provinces  are 
at  this  moment  occupied  by  more  than  twice  as  many  souls 
as  acknowledged  the  sway  of  Augustus  throughout  those 
regions,  although  peninsular  Italy  has  itself  remained  per- 
haps stationary  in  population.1 

Though  statesmen,  conversant  with  the  returns  of  the 
census  and  profession,  may  have  begun  from  an  earlier  time 
to  contemplate  the  population  of  the  empire  as  a 

,  .„    „       .          A  view  of  the 

whole,  such  a  view  must  have  been  still  foreign  aggregate  pop- 
to  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  perhaps  the  com-  vances  the  idea 
prehensive  estimate   of   Diodorus  Siculus  with 
reference  to  Egypt,  is  the  first  indication  of  such  a  spirit  even 

1  We  may  estimate — 

Under  Augustus,  at 
Gaul  (i.  e.  France,  Belgium,  Switzerland, 

&c.)nowat 40,000,000  6,000,000 

Spain  and  Portugal 18,000,000  8,000,000 

Italy  (Piedmont  and  Lombardy) 7,500,000  ) 

Smaller  States 1,500,000  )  4>500>00< 

The  peninsula 9,000,000  9,000,000 

The  islands  (Sicily,  &c.) 2,500,000  2,500,000 

Turkey  in  Europe  (with  Greece  and  Servia)  12,000,000  )  ,  n  nftft 

Germany  (south  of  the  Danube) 9,000,000  )  10.000»00( 

European  provinces 100,000,000      40,000,000 

The  population  of  the  Asiatic  and  African  provinces  at  the  present  day, 
meagre  as  it  is,  is  too  uncertain  for  specification ;  but  under  Augustus  we  may 
thus  enumerate  it : — 

Asia  Manor  and  Syria 27,000,000 

"  "     Cyprus 1,000,000 

"    Egypt 8,000,000 

"  "    Gyrene  and  Africa 9,000,000 


45,000,000 
Grand  total 85,000,000 


344  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

among  men  of  letters  and  intelligence.  When  it  became 
general  it  would  mark  more  strongly  than  any  thing  else  the 
consummation  of  the  change  in  popular  sentiment,  from  the 
narrow  ideas  of  tribe  and  nation  to  the  broader  view  of  the 
unity  of  mankind.  The  loose  conjecture  of  Paganism,  that 
divers  nations  sprang  from  divers  heroes,  and  the  heroes 
themselves  from  the  gods,  was  ready  to  yield  to  the  more 
enlightened  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  race,  already  dissemina- 
ted in  Home  by  the  Jewish  scriptures,  and  may  have  been 
rendered  popular  through  the  fashionable  poetry  of  the  author 
of  the  Metamorphoses.1  A  wise  government  might  have 
turned  to  good  effect  this  growing  tendency  to  acknowledge 
the  unity,  and  consequently  the  essential  equality  of  man ; 
but  while  statesmen  were  unconscious  of  its  importance, 
and  regarded  it  with  little  interest,  it  was  seized,  under  a 
higher  direction,  by  the  preachers  of  a  new  religion,  and 
became  the  basis  of  a  church  or  spiritual  empire,  which  event- 
ually overlapped  on  every  side  the  bounds  of  the  Caesarean 
dominions. 

But  the  sense  of  unity  thus  beginning  to  germinate  re- 
ceived its  first  practical  expression  in  the  acquiescence  with 
The  Pax  RO-  "which  the  Romans  beheld  the  universal  peace 
which  seemed  about  to  envelope  them.  The 
grandeur  of  this  new  and  strange  idea  made 
a  deep  impression  on  their  imaginations.  Some  faint  sighs 
for  rest  may  be  heard  in  the  philosophy  of  Lucretius ;  but 
the  poetry  of  the  Augustan  age  echoes  with  jubilant  strains 
at  its  supposed  attainment.  A  h  !  who  was  the  first  to  forge 
the  sword  of  iron  f  How  brutal^  how  truly  iron-hearted  was 
he  ! "  Such  were  the  complacent  declamations  of  the  friends 

1  Ovid,  Metam.  i.  78  : 

"  Natus  homo  est :  sive  hunc  divino  semine  fecit 

Hie  opifex  rerum,  mundi  melioris  origo,"  &c. 

The  legends  of   Prometheus  and  Deucalion  both  imply  the  unity  of  mankind, 
and  a  single  act  of  creation. 
a  Tibull.  i.  10.  1. : 

"  Quis  fuit  horrendos  primus  qui  protulit  enses  ? 
Quam  ferus  et  vere  ferreus  ille  fuit !  " 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  345 

of  peace,  recited  or  sung  before  admiring  audiences,  and 
wafted  from  province  to  province.  The  transition  of  the 
Roman  mind  from  aspirations  of  unlimited  aggressions  to 
views  of  mere  repression  and  control  was  sudden,  but  it  was 
not  the  less  permanent.  Henceforth  the  policy  of  govern- 
ment or  the  ambition  of  princes  might  sometimes  dictate  an 
attack ;  but  the  people  evinced  no  disposition  for  conquest, 
and  would  scarcely  rouse  themselves  to  avenge  a  national 
dishonour.  Let  the  wild  tribes  of  the  exterior,  the  outside 
barbarians,  they  exclaimed,  be  taught  to  respect  the  majesty 
of  the  empire :  let  them  be  satisfied  that  she  meditates  no 
assault  on  them ;  let  them  receive  from  her  hands  the  pledge 
of  safety  and  tranquillity.  The  Roman  Peace,  which  it  was 
her  mission  to  extend  to  the  German  or  the  Parthian,  might 
be  accepted  by  them  as  a  boon,  or  must  be  endured  as  a 
burden.1 

It  became  the  settled  policy  of  the  imperial  government, 
while  acquiescing  in  these  common  yearnings  for  peace,  to 
fortify  and  guard  the  frontiers  as  the  best  secu- 

rm       i.     .  1-11  Troops  and 

rity  against  war.  The  limits  to  which  the  gen-  fortifications 
erals  of  the  republic  had  already  advanced  form-  peace  was 
ed  a  strong  and  well-defined  natural  frontier  at 
almost  every  point  of  the  whole  circuit.  We  have  seen  how 
its  standing  forces  were  posted  along  the  lines  of  the  Rhine 
and  Danube,  their  quarters  secured  by  a  long  chain  of  fortifi- 
cations, and  still  further  protected  by  the  systematic  devasta- 
tion of  the  regions  in  their  front,  and  the  transport  of  the 
nearest  barbarians  within  the  limits  of  the  adjacent  province. 
In  the  East  the  frontier  of  the  Roman  dominion  was  less  ac- 
curately defined;  but  the  mountain  passes  which  lead  into 
Lesser  Asia,  practicable  for  armies  during  some  months  only 
in  the  year,  were  easily  guarded,  and  the  nominal  independ- 
ence of  certain  states  inclosed  within  the  empire  was  a 
wise  provision  for  its  defence  in  that  quarter.  The  passage 
of  the  Euphrates  was  guarded  at  the  most  available  points 

1  Virgil,  jEn.  vL  858. :  "  pacisque  imponere  morem." 


346  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

by  fortified  posts ;  and  from  thence  to  the  Red  Sea,  from  the 
Red  Sea  to  the  Atlas,  and  from  the  Atlas  to  the  ocean,  the 
Roman  Peace  was,  for  the  most  part,  effectually  secured  by 
deserts  and  solitudes,  which  there  at  least  the  conquerors  had 
not  made  but  found.1 

Within  these  sacred  limits  of  the  Roman  Terminus  the 
repose  of  the  empire  was  calm,  passive,  and  almost  deathlike. 

The  shores  of  the  mighty  ocean  might  still  re- 
of  the  subject  sound  with  the  murmurs  of  the  eternal  conflict 

of  servitude  and  freedom,  but  the  depths  of  its 
central  abysses  were  unmoved  alike  by  winds  and  currents. 
The  Alps,  the  Atlas,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Hsemus  were  the 
last  retreats  of  native  independence :  but  the  power  of  Au- 
gustus (so  languid  or  timid  on  the  frontiers),  had  been  di- 
rected against  his  internal  foes  with  a  pertinacity  which 
showed,  that  if  his  arm  seemed  anywhere  weak,  it  was 
restrained,  not  by  infirmity,  but  by  policy.  Ever  and 
anon  the  subject  nations  lifted  their  heads  and  beheld  with 
amazement  and  mortification,  by  what  a  mere  shadow  of 
military  force  they  were  actually  controlled,  and  again  lay 
quietly  down,  and  resigned  themselves  to  their  humiliation. 
Spain  and  Egypt,  they  remarked,  were  kept  in  obedience 
each  by  two  legions ;  Africa  by  one  only ;  Gaul  by  two 
cohorts  or  twelve  hundred  men;  Greece  by  the  six  lictors 
of  a  single  propraetor.8  The  sway  of  Rome  throughout  the 
provinces  was  a  government  of  opinion ;  it  was  maintained 
by  the  skill  with  which  the  interests  of  individuals  and  classes 
were  consulted,  by  a  system  no  doubt  of  political  corruption, 
which,  at  least,  was  better  than  the  sword,  by  the  remem- 
brance of  the  ills  of  barbaric  lawlessness,  above  all,  by  a  sense 
of  the  moral  superiority  of  the  conquerors.  When  the  spirit- 
ual yearnings  of  the  world,  thus  pacified  and  amalgamated, 
began  shortly  to  issue  in  a  burst  of  religious  enthusiasm, 

1  Compare  the  well-known  expression  of  the  British  chief  in  Tacitus 
(Agric.  30.),  so  applicable  in  other  quarters :  "  Solitudinem  faciunt,  pacem 
appellant." 

a  See  a  striking  passage  to  this  effect  in  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  ii.  16. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  34.7 

under  a  Providential  guidance,  the  conviction  of  the  essential 
force  and  greatness  of  the  Roman  character  was  the  fir- 
mest bulwark  of  heathenism  against  the  assaults  of  Christi- 
anity. 

Nevertheless  it  was  in  vain  that  men  cried  peace,  peace, 
when  there  was  no  peace.  The  greatest  of  Roman  historians 
has  lamented  that  the  empire  could  furnish  only  war  of  opinion 
a  narrative  of  petty  events,  and  a  survey  of  con-  ratTd'beueath 
temptible  characters;  yet  he  has  succeeded  in  the  Roman  °f 
investing  this  barren  subject  with  a  livelier  in-  Peace- 
terest,  and  inspiring  it  with  a  deeper  pathos,  than  have  been 
developed  by  the  more  stirring  themes  of  any  of  his  rivals. 
And  yet  he  was  not  aware  of  the  conflicts  that  were  really 
impending — the  wars  worse  than  civil  that  were  actually  fer- 
menting beneath  that  unruffled  surface — the  foes  more  ter- 
rible than  Gaul  or  Carthaginian,  who  were  slowly  struggling 
upwards,  like  the  warriors  of  Cadmus,  to  destroy  or  be  de- 
stroyed beneath  the  light  of  heaven.  The  human  appearance 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  dates  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
reign  of  Augustus.  This  mysterious  event,  in  which  we  trace 
the  germ  of  Roman  dissolution,  and  still  mark  the  frontier 
line  between  ancient  and  modern  civilization,  though  once 
commonly  assigned  to  the  year  753  of  the  city,  is  now  univer- 
sally referred  to  a  somewhat  earlier  period ;  and  among  many 
conflicting  opinions,  the  best  chronologers  are  still  divided 
between  the  years  u.  c.  747  and  749,  or  7  and  5  B.  c.1  It  was 

1  Fischer,  with  Ideler  and  Reinold,  place  the  date  in  747 ;  but  Clinton  in 
749.  A  remarkable  light  has  recently  been  thrown  upon  this  point,  by  the 
demonstration,  as  it  seems  to  be,  of  Augustus  Zumpt,  in  his  second  volume  of 
Commentationes  Epigraphicce,  that  Quirinius  (the  Cyrenius  of  St.  Luke,  ch.  ii.) 
•was  first  governor  of  Syria,  from  the  close  of  A.  TJ.  750,  B.  c.  4,  to  753,  B.  c.  1. 
Accordingly,  the  enumeration  begun  or  appointed  under  his  predecessor 
Varus,  and  before  the  death  of  Herod,  was  completed  after  that  event  under 
Quirinius.  It  would  appear  from  hence  that  our  Lord's  birth  was  A.  TJ.  750,  or 
749  at  the  earliest.  Though  I  have  used  the  first  volume  of  Zumpt's  Commen- 
tationes, I  have  not  yet  seen  the  second,  and  have  learnt  his  view  from  a  pas- 
eage  pointed  out  to  me  in  the  Christian  Reformer  for  Oct.  1855. 


348  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

not,  however,  till  more  than  half  a  century  later  that  the 
political  consequences  of  the  Christian  revelation  began  to 
be  felt :  with  these  our  history  will  be  concerned  hereafter, 
and  it  is  not  necessary  to  refer  to  them  any  further  by  antici- 
pation. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  349 


CHAPTER    XL. 

THE    GEEAT   CITIES   OF  THE   ROMAN  EMPIRE. — THE  CITIES  OP  GREECE  :    CORINTH, 

SPARTA,    ATHENS,    DELOS. — THE    CITIES    OF   ASIA:     EPHESUS  AND   OTHERS. 

ANTIOCH  IN  SYRIA. — THE  GRECIAN  CITIES  IN  ITALY:  THE  CITIES  ON  THE 
CAMPANIAN  COAST.  —  APPROACH  TO  ROME. — THE  HILLS  OF  ROME.  —  THE 

TALLEYS     OF    ROME. THE    FORUM,    TELABRUM,    ETC. THE    TRANSTIBERINA. 

— THE  CAMPUS  MARTIUS. — THE  STREETS  AND  DOMESTIC  ARCHITECTURE  OF 
ROME.  —  THE  DOMUS  AND  INSUL.fi.  —  POPULATION  ESTIMATED  '.  1.  FROM 
THE  AREA  OF  THE  CITY.  2.  FROM  THE  NUMBER  OF  HOUSES.  3.  FROM 
THE  NUMBER  OF  RECIPIENTS  OF  GRAIN. — CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

HPHE  progress  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  the  arts  of 
JL  peace  and  civilization  may  be  ascribed  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  skill  they  early  attained  in  self-defence.  The  idea  of  the 
When  assailed  by  a  superior  foe,  whom  they  sortedf/th'at 
were  unable  to  meet  in  the  field,  they  withdrew  und«thepire 
behind  the  shelter  of  their  walls,  constructed  for  Caesars- 
the  permanent  security  of  their  temples  and  dwellings,  and 
derided  from  the  heights  of  their  airy  citadels  the  fruitless 
challenge  of  the  adversary  who  pined  inactive  beneath  them. 
Hence  the  political  importance  which  the  city,  the  place  of 
common  refuge,  the  hearth  of  the  national  gods,  the  strong- 
hold of  national  independence,  acquired  among  them,  and  the 
comparative  insignificance  to  which  they  resigned  their  do- 
mains and  villages,  which  they  held  themselves  ever  ready,  at 
the  first  sign  of  invasion,  to  abandon  to  the  enemy.  Even 
when  their  conquests  extended  far  and  wide  over  islands  and 
continents,  Rome  and  Athens,  Syracuse  and  Sparta,  still  con- 
tinued, unlike  England  and  France,  Russia  and  Turkey,  in 


350  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

modern  times,  to  be  the  names  of  cities,  rather  than  of  coun- 
tries ;  all  political  privileges  centred  in  them,  and  flowed 
thence  with  slow  and  measured  pace  to  the  more  favoured 
of  their  subject  communities.  It  is  to  this  principle  of  their 
polity  that  we  owe  much  of  the  intense  national  life,  the 
deep-marked  lines  of  national  character,  of  faith,  manners, 
and  opinions,  which  severally  distinguished  them,  and  which 
seem  to  have  received  their  form  and  pressure  from  the 
mould  of  the  city  walls  in  which  they  were  first  fused  to- 
gether. We  have  seen,  however,  in  the  last  chapter,  how 
the  exclusive  pretensions  of  the  greatest  of  these  conquering 
cities  were  eventually  modified  by  the  exigencies  of  a  wide- 
extended  sovereignty.  The  Roman  empire  claims  at  last,  the 
first  in  civilized  antiquity,  to  be  considered  as  in  itself  a  polit- 
ical body,  independent  of  its  connexion  with  Rome,  the  resi- 
dence of  its  chief  governor.  Our  history  becomes  a  review 
of  the  affairs  of  a  vast  unit,  the  aggregate  of  a  multitude  of 
smaller  members,  the  sum  of  many  combined  elements.  The 
title  affixed  to  it,  the  History  of  the  Romans  rather  than  of 
Rome,  may  serve  to  mark  this  important  feature  in  its  char- 
acter ;  and  accordingly  it  seemed  most  fitting  to  commence 
our  survey  of  the  condition  of  the  Roman  people  under  Au- 
gustus with  a  general  view  of  the  empire  itself,  and  the  social 
and  political  bands  by  which  it  was  held  together  and  com- 
pacted into  one  system.  I  have  reserved  for  a  second  chap- 
ter the  more  special  examination  of  the  features  of  the  illus- 
trious city  from  which  it  must  still  derive  its  chief  interest,  as 
well  as  its  celebrated  name. 

Before  entering,  however,  on  this  survey  of  the  Eternal 

City,  we  will  pass  in  rapid  review  the  most  conspicuous  of  her 

rivals  in  fame  and  splendour,  such  as  they  ap- 

Proposed  snr-  r  ' 

vey  of  the  city    peared  at  this  period  of  eclipse,  if  not  of  degra- 

iteelf,  as  com-      *L     . 

pared  with  the   elation.     Ine  grandeur  of  Rome,  great  and  strik- 

other  great  .  .  •'•''•«  -i  •    -t    • 

cities  of  the       ing  as  it  must  seem  in  itself,  may  not  disdain  to 
borrow  additional  lustre  from  comparison  with 
her  noblest  contemporaries. 

No  Roman  traveller  of  gentle  birth  and  training  could 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  351 

enter  the  precincts  of  an  Hellenic  community,  and  fail  to 
imbibe  a  portion  of  the  sacred  glow  with  which 
it  regarded  the  beautiful  in  the  world  either  of  Greece  under 
sense  or  imagination.  The  young  patrician,  sent  Augustus- 
forth  to  acquire  lessons  of  taste  or  wisdom  at  Rhodes  and 
Athens,  returned  to  his  own  rude  Penates  an  altered  man.  A 
citizen  who  had  visited  Greece,  might  be  recognised,  no  doubt, 
in  the  Via  Sacra  almost  at  sight.  He  had  worshipped  in  the 
temple  of  a  real  divinity ;  he  had  been  initiated  into  the 
genuine  mysteries  of  nature ;  he  had  received  illumination 
from  above.  Yet  the  Greece  which  he  had  traversed  and 
admired,  though  still  full  of  restless  stir  and  motion,  still 
occupied  upon  thoughts  that  never  die,  and  forms  that  never 
tire,  was  living  Greece  no  more  :  she  was  the  shadow  of  her 
former  self,  the  ghost  of  her  ancient  being,  still  lingering 
among  the  haunts  of  her  pride  and  beauty,  more  attractive 
perhaps  to  the  imagination  than  in  the  bloom  of  her  living 
existence.  He  had  threaded,  perhaps,  with  Cicero's  graceful 
friend,  the  narrow  channels  of  the  ^Egean,  crowned  by  the 
Athenian  acropolis.  Behind  him  had  lain  ^gina,  before  him 
Megara,  on  his  right  the  Pira?us,  Corinth  on  his  left.1  It  was 
indeed  a  scene  of  mournful  recollections.  JEgina, 
the  handmaid  of  haughty  Athens,  had  shared  her  Me 
latest  disasters,  but  had  never  revived  with  her  recent  renova- 
tion. Megara,  the  fatal  cause  of  the  great  war  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, had  sunk  into  a  state  of  decay  and  insignificance  in 
which  she  could  no  longer  tempt  an  unhallowed  ambition. 
The  sight  of  Corinth,  still  desolate  and  in  ruins,  Corinth  and 
might  awake  a  painful  remembrance  of  the  sack  the  Fir8BUS- 
of  Mummius,  the  most  shameful  page  in  the  annals  of 
Roman  devastation ;  while  the  Piraeus  reflected  still  more 
recent  traditions  of  outrage,  when  Sulla  wreaked  on  her 
the  vengeance  which  he  affected  to  spare  to  the  venerable 
glories  of  Athens.  No  spot  on  earth  could  read  the  Roman 
moralist  a  more  instructive  lesson  on  the  vanity  of  human 

1  See  the  famous  consolations  of  Sulpicius  to  Cicero  (Div,  iv.  5.),  written 
in  the  year  70&. 


352  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

greatness,  or  display  to  him  more  melancholy  trophies  of  the 
lust  of  rapine  and  conquest. 

Such  mementos  might  have  their  use  and  appropriateness, 
as  addressed  to  a  child  of  the  capitol  and  the  forum  on  cross- 
ing the  threshold  of  illustrious  Greece ;  but  we 

Restoration  of  .     ,,       ,.  , ,  , ,     ,    -,  -, 

Corinth  by  are  not  to  infer  from  them  that  decay  and  misery 
889ar>  had  fallen  as  a  blight  upon  the  whole  realm  of 
Hellas.  Corinth  herself  was  at  that  moment  about  to  rise 
from  her  ashes  under  the  auspices  of  a  generous  Roman,  and 
to  take  her  place  once  more  among  the  most  distinguished  of 
cities.  Her  position,  in  respect  to  commerce  and  navigation, 
was  not  less  admirable  than  that  of  Alexandria  or  Constanti- 
nople ;  and  nothing  but  the  deliberate  pressure  of  a  conque- 
ror's arm  could  keep  her  permanently  prostrate.  Placed  at 
the  head  of  two  almost  commingling  gulfs,  and  commanding 
by  them  the  commerce  of  Italy  and  Asia,  which  shrank  in 
conscious  imbecility  from  the  stormy  navigation  of  the  Ma- 
lean  Cape,  Corinth,  restored  to  life  and  freedom  by  the  decree 
of  Julius  Caesar,  entered  at  once  on  a  new  career  of  pros- 
perity, in  which  she  was  destined  speedily  to  outstrip  the 
fame  of  her  earlier  successes.  It  is  probable  indeed  that 
some  of  her  chief  buildings  and  temples  had  survived,  though 
defaced  and  desecrated  by  the  ruthless  Mummius.1  A  squalid 
and  degraded  population  still  crouched  under  their  shelter ; 
but  these  poor  wretches  gained  their  livelihood,  not  by  return- 
ing to  the  pursuits  of  commerce,  which  were  checked  by  wars 
and  piracy,  and  the  now  triumphant  rivalry  of  Rhodes  and 
Delos,  but  by  groping  among  their  ruins  for  the  buried  rem- 
nants of  Corinthian  bronze  which  had  escaped  the  cupidity 
of  the  first  captors,  and  had  since  become  of  priceless  value.8 

1  This,  it  seems,  may  be  inferred  from  the  way  in  which  Pausanias,  in  his 
account  of  Corinth,  speaks  of  these  edifices  as  monuments  of  antiquity. 

2  Comp.  Strabo,  viii.  6.  p.  381. ;   Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxiv.  2.,  xxxvii.  3. ; 
Stat.  Sylv.  ii.  2.  68. :  "  JSraque  ab  Isthmiacis  auro  potiora  favillis."     Cicero 
(Tiuc.  Disp.  iii.  22.)  laments  the  indifference  these  people  evinced  to  their 
degraded  condition.     He  was  more  moved  by  the  sight  of  their  ruins  than 
they  were  themselves :  "  Magis  me  moverunt  Corinthi  subito  aspect*  parie- 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  353 

The  restoration  of  Corinth  was  one  of  Caesar's  noblest  pro- 
jects, and  he  was  fortunately  permitted  to  accomplish  it.  In 
gratitude  for  his  services  the  new  inhabitants  gave  it  the 
name  of  the  Praise  of  Julius?  But  the  lazy  plebeians  of 
Rome  had  shown  no  inclination  to  earn  wealth  by  industry ; 
no  mercantile  community  could  have  sprung  from  the  seed 
of  the  licentious  veterans.  The  good  sense  of  the  dictator 
was  strongly  marked  in  his  disregarding  the  prejudices  of  his 
countrymen,  and  transplanting  to  his  new  establishment  a 
colony  of  enfranchised  slaves.2  Corinth  rapidly  rose  under 
these  auspices,  became  a  centre  of  commerce  and  art,  and 
took  the  lead  among  the  cities  of  European  Hellas.  Here 
was  established  the  seat  of  the  Roman  government  of  Achaia, 
and  its  population,  though  the  representations  we  have  re- 
ceived of  it  are  extravagant,  undoubtedly  exceeded  that  of 
any  Grecian  rival.3  The  beauty  of  its  situation,  the  splen- 
dour of  its  edifices,  the  florid  graces  of  its  architecture,  and 
the  voluptuous  charms  of  its  parks  and  pleasure  grounds, 
delighted  the  stranger  whom  its  commerce  had  attracted. 
The  security  it  now  enjoyed  allowed  it  to  expand  its  ample 
streets  far  beyond  the  precincts  of  its  defences,  and  the  light 
and  airy  arcades  which  connected  it  with  its  harbour  at  Le- 
chgeum  might  be  advantageously  contrasted  with  the  weary 
length  of  dead  wall  which  extended  from  Athens  to  the 
Pirseus.4 

tinas  quam  ipsos  Corinthios,  quorum  animis  diuturna  cogitatio  callum  vetusta- 
tis  obduxerat." 

1  "  Laus  Julia  "  upon  the  medals.     Eckhel,  ii.  238. 

2  Strabo,  viii.  6.  p.  381. ;  Pausan.  ii.  1,  2. ;  Plut.  Cces.  57. ;  Dion,  xliii.  50. ; 
Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  iv.  4.     Crinagoras  in  Anthol.  Gr.  ii.  145. 

3  Comp.  Apuleius,  Metam.  x.  p.  247. ;  Hierocles,  p.  646. :  Koptvdos  i*tfrp6- 
TroAij  ira<r7)j  'EAAaSoy.     Athenseus  (vi.  20.)  declares  that  its  slaves  amounted 
to  460,000.     This  number  may  bear  perhaps  to  be  shorn  of  its  last  figure ;  but 
we  may  as  well  suspect  exaggeration  in  the  writer  as  corruption  in  the  MSS. 

4  Stat.  Sylv.  ii.  2.  25. : 

"  Qualis  ubi  subeas  Ephyres  Baccheidos  altum 
Culmen,  ab  Inoo  fert  semita  tecta  Lechaeo." 

There  was  more  than  one  such  "via  tecta"  for  the  convenience  of  shade  at 
TOL.  iv. — 23 


354:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  restoration  of  Corinth  exalted  her  to  higher  eminence 
in  every  respect,  except  historic  fame,  than  either  of  the 
rivals  who  had  formerly  outshone  her.  Of  these, 
favoured  by  indeed,  Sparta,  in  the  days  of  Augustus,  had  fall- 
en almost  to  the  lowest  depths  of  humiliation. 
Enjoying  no  advantages  of  position,  she  had  suffered  more 
than  her  share  in  the  general  decline  of  the  Grecian  cities 
after  their  loss  of  independence.  In  the  late  troubles,  however, 
she  had  prudently  sided  with  Octavius,  while  Athens  was 
dazzled  by  the  more  brilliant  pretensions  of  Antouius.  She 
had  been  rewarded  with  the  boon  of  immunity  from  Roman 
taxation,  as  well  as  self-government,  and  these  privileges  she 
continued  to  retain.1  But  at  the  same  time  she  was  allowed 
to  exercise  no  supremacy  over  the  descendants  of  her  Helots 
and  Perked,  who  retained,  under  the  name  of  free  Laconians, 
complete  independence  of  her  authority  in  four-and-twenty 
townships  along  her  coasts ;  and  of  the  hundred  burghs  she 
boasted  in  the  days  of  her  prosperity,  she  could  now  count 
no  more  than  thirty,  all  of  which  were  sunk  in  squalid  insig- 
nificance. 

Nevertheless,  in  this  reverse   of  fortune,  the   Spartans 

could  still  vaunt  themselves  genuine  children  of  the  Dorian 

heroes,  who  had  conquered  the  sons  of  Hercules, 

The  Athenians 

debased  in         and  made  themselves  more  than  once  the  tyrants 

blood. 

of  the  Hellenic  world.  Did  their  ancient  rivals 
the  Athenians  venture  to  put  forth  similar  pretensions  of  race 
and  pedigree,  they  were  met  with  a  contemptuous  smile  from 
the  rest  of  Greece  and  the  enlightened  all  over  the  world, 
who  well  knew  how  little  of  pure  Attic  blood  really  flowed 
in  their  veins.  The  genuine  race  of  Cecrops,  the  earth-born 
Eupatrids,  had  long  mingled  with  strangers,  before  the  fatal 

Rome.  At  a  much,  later  period  such  an  arcade  ran  from  the  Lateran  gate  to 
the  basilica  of  St.  Paul,  and  one  structure  of  the  kind  now  leads  from  Bologna 
to  a  favourite  shrine  some  miles  distant. 

1  Strabo,  viii.  5.  p.  365..:  fri/uVj07j<ret»'  Sia<f>fp6vrtas,  teal  tutivav  iKfvQtpot, 
irXV  rwv  <pi\tKo>v  \ftrovpyidii'  &\\o  <rvvTt\ovvres  oii$fv.  Coinp.  Plin.  Hist. 
Nat.  iv.  6. :  "ager  Laconicae  geutis."  Pausan.  iii.  iv. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  355 

massacre  of  Sulla,  which  almost  exterminated  them.  The 
edifices  of  their  city,  which  the  Roman  general  deigned  to 
leave  standing,  were  now  repeopled  by  a  motley  crowd  of 
immigrants  from  all  parts.1  With  the  name,  however,  of 
Athenians,  these  new  citizens  inherited  the  pride  of  their 
presumed  ancestry.  They  paraded  a  spirit  of  independence 
even  before  the  fasces  of  the  praetor,  refusing,  when  urged 
by  one  Roman  consular,  to  allow  sepulture  within  their  walls 
to  another,  and  declining  to  repeat  the  celebration  of  their 
mysteries  at  the  solicitation  of  Crassus.* 

The  splendour  of  the  old  Athenian  glory  still  cast  a  mild 
declining  ray  over  the  land  of  Phoabus  and  the  Muses ;  but 
the  most  accomplished  of  its  foreign  votaries  could  not  but 
observe,  that  in  his  time  the  home  of  science  and  letters  was 
more  justly  appreciated  by  strangers  than  by  its  own  degen- 
erate citizens.3  Strangers  indeed  still  continued  to  flock  to 
it,  and  none  were  so  numerous,  none  such  enthusiasts  in  ad- 
miring it,  as  the  sons  of  its  Italian  conquerors.  The  contem- 
poraries of  Cicero  fully  recognised  the  fact  that  the  fame  of 
ancient  Hellas  was  mainly  a  reflex  from  the  preeminent  glory 
of  Athens.4  The  jealousies  of  ancient  rivals  were  extinguished 
in  their  common  humiliation,  and  the  men  of  Rhodes  and 
Sparta  regarded  Athens  as  the  last  prop  of  their  national 
renown,  and  sought  the  honour  of  enrolment  among  her  citi- 
zens.6 The  noblest  of  the  Romans  were  fain  to  follow  this 

1  Cic.  Or  at.  44. :  "  Athenis  mos  est  quotannis  laudare  in  concione  cos  qui 
sunt  in  proelis  interfecti,  recitato  Platonis  Menexeno."  Tacitus  (Ann.  ii.  55.) 
tells  how  the  pride  of  Rome  rebuked  these  pretensions :  "  quod  contra  decus 
Rom.  nominis  non  Atheniensis  tot  cladibus  exstinctos,  sed  colluviem  omnium 
nationum  comitate  nimia  coluisset." 

*  See  the  letter  of  Sulpicius  on  the  death  of  M.  Marcellus.  Cic.  ad  Div.  iv. 
12.  5. ;  and  comp.  Cic.  de  Orat.  iii.  20. 

s  Cic.  de  Orat.  iii.  11. :  "  Atheuis  jam  diu  doctrina  ipsorum  Atheniensium 
interiit,  domicilium  tantum  in  ilia  urbe  remanet  studiorum,  quibus  vacant 
cives,  peregrini  utuntur." 

4  Cic.  Brut.  13.  ...  "  dicendi  studium  non  erat  commune  Graecia;  sed 
proprium  Athenarum." 

8  Cic.  pro  Place.  26. :  "  Auctoritate  tanta  est,  ut  jam  fractum  et  debilita- 
tum  Graciae  nomen  hujus  urbis  laude  nitatur." 


356  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

example.  In  vain  did  Cicero  remind  them  of  a  principle  of 
their  own  law,  better  known,  perhaps,  to  constitutional  anti- 
quarians than  to  practical  jurists,  that  every  Roman  who  in- 
scribed his  name  on  the  rolls  of  another  republic  thereby  for- 
feited the  privileges  of  his  own.1 

With  the  destruction  of  the  Piraeus  by  Sulla  the  commer- 
cial ascendancy  of  Athens  had  suffered  an  eclipse  whence  it 
never  again  emerged.  In  the  time  of  Augustus 
splendour  of  her  naval  arsenal  had  dwindled  into  a  small  strag- 
gling village,  and  the  three  state-galleys  which 
she  still  maintained,  like  the  Bucentaur  of  falling  Venice, 
merely  preserved  the  tradition  of  her  former  greatness.5 
Nevertheless,  though  shorn  of  the  resources  of  industry  and 
independence,  the  splendour  of  the  illustrious  city  was  main- 
tained by  the  pious  veneration  of  her  foreign  visitors,  who 
regarded  her  not  unjustly  with  a  feeling  akin  to  religious. 
The  Athens  of  the  Augustan  era  might  still,  perhaps,  claim 
to  be  the  finest  city  in  the  world.  Since  the  fall  of  her  liber- 
ty 300  years  before,  kings  and  potentates  had  vied  with  one 
another  in  embellishing  her  streets  and  public  places ;  and 
if  she  presented,  like  more  modern  cities,  no  capacious  squares 
or  long  vistas  lined  on  either  side  with  superb  edifices,  it  was 
owing  to  the  unevenness  of  her  original  site,  and  the  scruples 
which  had  spared  her  narrow  and  tortuous  lanes  in  so  many 
capitulations.  The  great  temple  of  Zeus  Olympius,  first 
designed  by  the  dynasty  of  Pisistratus,  had  risen,  column 
after  column,  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  and  having  been 
partially  spoiled  by  Sulla,  was  carried  on  almost  to  comple- 

1  Cic.  pro  Salb.  12. 

*  Strabo,  ix.  1.  p.  395.     Athens  contributed  all  her  remaining  forces  to 
the  cause  of  Pompeius,  retaining  only  the  three  official  galleys  Theoris,  Para- 
lus,  and  Salaminia,  the  last  token  of  her  ancient  glory.     Lucan,  iii.  381. : 
"  Exhausit  veteres  quamvis  delectus  Athenas, 
Exiguae  Phoebea  tenent  navalia  puppes ; 
Tresque  petunt  veram  credi  Salamina  carin®." 

The  passage  is  crabbed,  and  there  is  no  satisfactory  explanation  to  be  given  of 
the  word  Phcebea.  None  of  the  Athenian  havens  was  consecrated  to  Apollo, 
but  the  Munychia  had  a  temple  of  Diana. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  35Y 

tion  by  the  joint  efforts,  already  commemorated,  of  many 
royal  associates.1  Attalus,  king  of  Pergamus,  had  crowned 
the  walls  of  the  Acropolis  with  statues.  Ptolemy  Philadel- 
phus  had  erected  a  magnificent  gymnasium.  The  groves  of 
Academus,  which  Sulla  had  cut  down  to  construct  machinery 
for  his  siege,  were  planted  anew  in  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
and  continued  for  many  ages  to  furnish  a  shade  to  sophists 
and  rhetoricians.  The  walls  of  Athens,  however,  once  over- 
thrown, lay  henceforth  in  ruins.  The  weakness  of  the  city 
of  Minerva  became  now  her  best  defence.  Both  Julius  and 
Augustus  contributed  to  the  erection  of  a  portico  dedicated 
to  the  goddess,  and  Agrippa  placed  his  own  statue,  together 
with  that  of  his  imperator,  upon  a  single  pedestal  by  the  side 
of  the  Propylsea  of  the  Acropolis.  A  temple  of  Rome  and 
Augustus,  was  erected  before  the  eastern  front  of  the  Par- 
thenon. The  munificence  of  a  private  benefactor,  the  censor 
Appius  Claudius,  had  decorated  the  hamlet  of  the  Attic  Eleu- 
sis ;  and  we  may  indulge,  perhaps,  in  the  idea  that  Cicero 
himself  displayed  his  gratitude  to  his  alma  mater  by  dedicat- 
ing to  her  a  votive  memorial  within  the  precincts  of  the 
Academy.5 

Exempt  from  the  direct  control  of  a  Roman  officer,  the 
university  of  Athens  was  governed  by  a  senate  and  assembly 
of  its  own.  It  was  permitted  to  retain  its  an- 

Cultivation  of 

cient  laws,  and  the  august  tribunals,  such  as  the  art  and  letters 

A  i_-   i_     T-    f  j     f  at  Athens. 

Areopagus,  which  had  continued  for  so  many 
ages  to  administer  them.  Under  the  shadow  of  the  free 
republic  of  thought  and  letters,  art,  science,  and  philosophy 
were  still  taught  and  cultivated.  The  professors  of  ethics 
and  physics,  of  oratory  and  grammar,  still  held  forth  to  ad- 
miring audiences,  each  in  his  own  lecture-room ;  every  theory 

1  Livy  (xli.  20.)  speaks  of  it  perhaps  before  the  undertaking  of  the  con- 
federate potentates :  "  templum  Jovis  Olympii  unum  in  terris  inchoatum  pro 
magnitudine  Dei." 

a  Cic.  ad  Att.  vi.  1.  26. :  "  Audio  Appium  irpoirv\aiov  Eleusine  facere : 
num  inepti  fuerimus  si  nos  quoque  Academiae  fecerimus?  Equidem  valde 
ipsas  Athenas  amo :  volo  esse  quoddam  monumentum." 


358  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

had  its  special  teacher,  every  paradox  its  sworn  defender ; 
but  strangers  flocked  to  Athens,  not  to  ascertain  the  truth 
from  the  collision  of  minds,  but  to  hear  how  the  doctrines  of 
Epicurus  were  modified  by  Patro,  how  Phsedrus  handled  the 
dialectics  of  Zeno,  or  what  was  the  latest  qualification  of  the 
doubts  of  the  Academy.1  The  place  of  the  poets  had  been 
taken  by  lecturers  on  poetry:  but  versification  still  had  its 
votaries,  and  the  epigram's  humble  plot  of  ground  was  culti- 
vated at  least  with  exquisite  taste.  The  arts  of  sculpture  and 
architecture  had  long  lost  their  originality  and  simplicity ; 
yet  there  was  no  department  of  excellence  in  which  the  genius 
of  Greece  seemed  so  nearly  inexhaustible  as  in  these.2 

The  destruction  of  Corinth  by  the  Romans  had  driven  the 

commerce  of  Greece  to  the  Isle  of  Delos,  which,  besides  the 

convenience  of  its  situation  at  the  entrance  of  the 

Commercial  _  .          .,      ,  ..  ., 

emporium  of  .diigean,  enjoyed  the  advantage  ol  a  reputation 
for  special  sanctity.  It  was  the  natural  empo- 
rium of  four  seas,  and  offered  an  interchange  between  the 
products  of  Greece  and  Asia,  Libya  and  Sarmatia.  It  became 
the  centre  of  the  slave  trade  of  the  ancient  world,  the  most 
constant,  and  perhaps  the  most  extensive,  of  all  traffics.  The 
piracy  of  the  Mediterranean,  which  threatened  to  sweep  away 
all  other  maritime  employments,  was  the  feeder  and  sustainer 
of  this.  Hither  it  converged  in  its  regular  and  legitimate 

1  Propert.  Hi.  21. : 

"  Inde  ubi  Piraei  capient  me  litora  portus, 

Scandam  ego  Theseae  brachia  longa  viae. 
Illic  aut  spatiis  animum  emendare  Platonis 
Incipiam,  aut  hortis,  docte  Epicure,  tuis. 
Persequar  aut  studium  linguae,  Demosthenis  anna, 

Librorumque  tuos,  muude  Menandre,  sales ; 
Aut  certe  tabulae  captent  mea  lumina  pictae, 

Sive  ebore  exactae,  seu  magis  aere,  manus." 

8  Enthusiasts  for  Grecian  art,  such  as  Visconti,  have  maintained  that  its 
excellence  in  sculpture  lasted  without  decline  for  six  centuries.  On  the  other 
hand,  Velleius  Paterculus  asserts  the  famous  paradox,  "  Eminentissima  inge- 
nia  in  idem  arctati  temporis  spatium  congregari,"  and  illustrates  it  by  the  as- 
sumed confinement  of  the  excellence  of  all  arts  in  Greece  within  the  limits  of 
a  single  generation.  Veil.  i.  16,  17. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  359 

course  from  Thrace  and  Pontus  on  the  Euxine,  from  Phrygia 
and  Caria,  from  Egypt  and  Gyrene ;  even  the  cities  of  Euro- 
pean Hellas  furnished  a  class  of  victims,  selected  for  the 
beauty  of  their  persons  or  the  refinement  of  their  manners. 
But  wherever  piracy  was  in  the  ascendant,  captives  from 
every  coast,  and  even  noble  Romans  among  them,  were 
wafted  to  the  great  dep&t  of  Delos,  and  transferred  without 
remorse  to  the  dealers  who  awaited  their  arrival.1  Not  less 
than  5000  slaves  had  thus  been  bought  and  sold  in  a  single 
day.  But  the  prosperity  of  the  guilty  island  was  more  short- 
lived than  even  the  crimes  on  which  it  throve.  The  pirates 
were  still  roaming  the  seas  with  impunity  when  the  wealth 
of  Delos  tempted  the  cupidity  of  Menophanes,  one  of  the 
captains  of  Mithridates,  by  whom  it  was  stormed  and  ran- 
sacked.2 Its  commercial  eminence  migrated  to  the  securer 
stronghold  of  Rhodes,  which  had  the  singular  good  fortune 
to  escape  the  sword  both  of  the  Romans  and  their  adversa- 
ries. The  ruin  of  Delos  was  consummated  by  the  restora- 
tion of  Corinth ;  and  in  the  age  of  Augustus  it  still  lay  pros- 
trate, nor  did  it  ever  again  recover  a  portion  of  its  earlier 
importance.' 

Notwithstanding  many  vexatious  restrictions  on  the  natu- 
ral course  of  trade  imposed  by  fiscal  ignorance,  the  unity  of 
the  Roman  empire  conspired  on  the  whole  to  re- 

.,      ,       ...  t,  T          rrn.       Cities  of  Asia  • 

store  commerce  to  its  legitimate  channels.    The 

spot  on  the  Asiatic  coast  which  corresponded  most  nearly 


1  After  the  suppression  of  the  Cicilian  piracy,  the  practice  survived  of  kid- 
napping free  men  and  selling  them  into  slavery.  Cicero  (de  Off.  ii.  16.) 
praises  the  benevolence  of  those  who  redeemed  the  victims  of  the  crimps  or 
corsairs.  Even  in  Italy,  during  the  civil  wars,  free  men  were  seized  by  armed 
bands  and  carried  into  the  ergastula  of  the  great  proprietors.  Both  Augustus 
and  his  successor  attempted  to  remedy  this  violence  (Suet.  Oct.  32.,  Tiber  8.) : 
nevertheless  the  crime  continued.  Senec.  Controv.  x.  4.  The  Digest,  xxxix. 
4.,  recognises  the  existence  of  freemen  made  slaves. 

4  Cicero,  at  a  little  later  period  still,  contrasts  the  security  of  Delos  with 
the  dangers  of  Italy,  and  even  the  Appian  Way,  under  the  reign  of  maritime 
piracy.  Pro  Leg.  Manil.  18. 

3  Strabo,  x.  5.  p.  486. 


360  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

with  Corinth  on  the  European  was  Ephesus,  a  city  which, 
in  the  time  of  Herodotus,  had  been  the  starting 

Ephesus,  TT  .    .        , 

point  of  caravans  for  upper  Asia,  but  which, 
under  the  change  of  dynasties  and  ruin  of  empires,  had 
dwindled  into  a  mere  provincial  town.  The  mild  sway  of 
Augustus  restored  it  to  wealth  and  eminence,  and  as  the  offi- 
cial capital  of  the  province  of  Asia,  it  was  reputed  to  be  the 
metropolis  of  no  less  than  500  cities.1  It  shared  with  Smyrna, 
Pergamus,  and  Nicsea  the  honour  of  erecting  a  temple  to  the 
emperor.  Apamea,  in  Phrygia,  the  centre  of  trade  with  the 
interior,  was  reputed  the  second  commercial  city  in  the  penin- 
sula. Synnada  was  celebrated  for  its  variegated  marbles, 

Laodicea  for  its  woollens  and  tapestries,  Hiera- 

Apamea,  Syn-  .  A 

nada,  Laodicea,  polis  and  Cibyra,  the  nrst  for  its  dyes,  the  se- 
cond for  its  iron  manufactures.  To  these  may  be 

added  the.  commercial  activity  of  Miletus,  and  the  royal  mag- 
nificence of  decoration  which  distinguished  Cyzi- 

Miletus.  .  „ 6       .  / 

cus,  binope,  and  (Jnidus,  in  each  of  which  kings 
had  once  resided.2  These  numerous  hives  of  population  were 
supported,  not  only  by  the  exchange  of  their  industry  for 
foreign  articles,  but  by  the  abundant  fertility  of  the  soil 
around  them :  the  plains  of  Sardis  and  the  valleys  of  the  Cai- 
cus,  the  Hermus  and  the  Cayster,  were  remarkable  for  their 
harvests,  and  the  wines  of  Asia  were  among  the  choicest  in 
the  world.3 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  most  famous  cities  of  the 

old  world,  reviving  under  the  exercise  of  their  native  usages, 

or  protected  by  the  vigilance  and  equity  of  a 

Cities  of  Mace-  J  m 

donian  origin     strong  metropolitan  administration.    There  was, 

in  Asia.  ,  i  «•••«_•*•  i 

however,  another  class  ot  cities  in  the  .Last,  ot 

1  Eckhel,  Doctr.  Numm.  ii.  559.  &c. ;  Ulpian.  de  Off.  procons.  in  Digest, 
iv.  5. ;  Strabo,  xiv.  1.  p.  640.  foil. 

a  Strabo,  xii.,  xiii. ;  Joseph.  Sell.  Jud.  ii.  16.  §4. 

3  Strabo,  II.  cc.  For  the  natural  resources  of  Asia,  the  rapidity  with  which 
it  recovered  its  losses  by  war  and  tyranny,  and  the  importance  of  its  revenues 
to  the  empire,  see  particularly  Cicero,  ad  Qu.  Fr.  i.  1.  and  pro  Leg.  Manil.  6. 
ad  Alt.  vi.  2. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  361 

more  modern  origin  and  character,  of  which  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  notice  one  specimen.  The  Macedonian  rulers  of 
the  East  were  a  race  of  builders.  After  the  manner  of  the 
kings  and  satraps  to  whom  they  succeeded,  they  fed  their 
pride  by  sweeping  the  inhabitants  of  towns  and  villages  into 
cities  laid  out  with  pomp  and  splendour,  on  sites  the  most 
convenient  and  commanding,  to  which  they  gave  their  own 
names  or  those  of  their  kinsmen  or  consorts. 
Antioch  flourished  on  the  fall  of  Tyre.  It  was 
erected  by  Seleucus  Nicator,  the  greatest  of  all  builders  of 
the  class,  on  the  banks  of  the  Orontes,  about  fifteen  miles 
from  the  sea,  in  a  plain  celebrated  for  the  beauty  of  its  cli- 
mate, the  abundance  of  its  water,  and  consequent  fertility. 
It  was  laid  out,  after  the  usual  type  of  the  Macedonian  cities, 
on  a  symmetrical  plan,  the  chief  street  being  a  straight  line  four 
miles  hi  length,  bordered  throughout  with  double  colonnades. 
Four  cities,  contiguous  to  one  another,  coalesced  into  a  single 
metropolis ;  but,  from  some  inequality  of  ground  or  other 
cause,  the  common  arrangement  of  two  transverse  streets 
was  not  adopted  at  Antioch.1  The  character  of  Grecian 
architecture,  with  its  indefinite  prolongation  of  horizontal 
lines,  its  regularity  of  outline,  and  constant  repetition  of 
similar  forms,  must  have  given  a  peculiar  air  of  magnificence 
to  this  style  of  construction,  and  conveyed  an  impression  of 
the  enormous  power  of  the  hand  which  could  thus  strike  out 
as  it  were  at  one  blow  a  fabric  capable  of  infinite  extension 
in  every  direction.  Antioch  contained,  we  are  told,  in  the 
third  century  300,000  free  citizens,  and  was  then  surpassed 
in  numbers  only  by  Rome  and  Seleucia  on  the  Tigris.  Alex- 
andria perhaps  nearly  equalled  it,  but  every  other  city 

1  Strabo,  xvi.  2.  p.  *750.  See  the  description  and  map  of  Antioch  from 
Malelas  and  Libanius,  in  Lewin's  or  Conybeare  and  Howson's  Life  of  St.  Paul. 
Nicsea,  mentioned  above,  should  be  included  among  the  cities  of  Macedonian 
origin.  Strabo  describes  it  as  a  square  of  sixteen  stadia  in  circumference, 
divided  into  equal  rectangles  by  two  straight  avenues,  so  that  the  four  gates 
could  be  seen  from  a  pillar  in  the  public  place  in  the  centre.  Strabo,  xii.  4 
p.  566. 


362  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

throughout  the  world  yielded  to  it  the  palm  of  grandeur 
and  population.1 

The  Grecian  cities  of  Syria,  and  Antioch  at  the  head  of 
them,  were  notorious  for  their  luxury  and  voluptuousness : 
Greek  cities  in  an^  tne  i^e  an^  dissolute  native,  relaxed  by  long 
Italy.  servitude  to  his  kings  and  priests,  received  the 

polish  of  Hellenic  culture  only  to  make  his  degradation  more 
conspicuous.  The  refinements  of  Grecian  life  had  found  a  home 
also  on  the  fairest  shores  of  Italy,  and  had  exercised  no  less 
debasing  influence  on  the  sterner  character  of  the  Romans 
themselves.  From  ages  long  lost  in  the  darkness  of  legend- 
ary history,  settlers  from  Greece  had  established  themselves 
on  the  coast  of  the  Tyrrhene  or  Sicilian  Sea :  hill  and  head- 
land, pool  and  river,  village  and  city,  had  received  from  them 
a  Grecian  appellation,  and  had  been  admitted  within  the 
hallowed  circle  of  their  national  traditions.  Misenum  and 
Leucosia,  Posidonia  and  Cuma3,  Acheron  and  Avernus,  Nea- 
polis  and  Herculaneum,  attested  the  ancient  settlement  of  the 
Greeks  on  the  coast  of  Campania;  while  cities  of  native 
growth,  such  as  Baiae  and  Stabia3,  Surrentum,  Pompeii,  and 
Salernum,  grew  up  by  the  side  of  the  foreign  colonies,  and- 
partook  of  their  splendour  and  prosperity.8  From  the  period 
of  the  conquest  of  this  region  by  the  Romans,  its  beauty  and 
salubrity  had  attracted  their  notice ;  the  medicinal  qualities 
of  its  warm  vapours  and  sulphureous  springs  were  appreciated 
by  them ;  while  the  mountains  which  encircled  it  had  not 
yet  revealed  their  latent  fires,  or  the  activity  they  may  have 
displayed  in  remote  ages  was  remembered  only  in  obscure 
traditions.3 

I  Herodian,  iv.  5. :    %  r?V  'Avn6xeiav  fy  ryv  'A\e£dvSpfiai>,  011  iro\v  ri  TTJJ 
'Pwjtijs,  &s  faro,  jue-yeflei  viro\fnrov(ras.     Seleucia  on  the  Tigris  was  built  also 
by  Seleucus  Nicator.     In  the  time  of  Pliny  it  was  supposed  to  contain  400,000 
free  inhabitants  (Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vi.  36.),  although  the  Parthians  had  built 
Ctesiphon  by  its  side  to  rival  and  control  it.     I  suspect  that  Pliny's  estimate 
applies  properly  to  the  two  cities  conjointly. 

II  Paestum  was  the  Italian  name  of  Posidonia,  Puteoli  of  Dicaearchia,  which 
eventually  prevailed  over  the  Grecian. 

3  It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  Homeric  or  Phoenician  tradition,  that 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  363 

Roman  imperators,  from  the  time  of  the  Scipios  and  the 
Gracchi,  had  sought  repose  in  this  favoured  tract :  on  the 
heights  of  Misenum  Horterisius  and  Lucullus,  The  life  of  the 
Csesar  and  Pompeius,  had  erected  their  villas,  ca£'jZi°anthe 
their  camps,  as  Seneca  would  rather  call  them,  coast- 
from  the  dignity  of  their  position,  and  the  wide  prospect 
they  commanded.1  The  cities  which  lined  the  gulf  or  crater 
embraced  by  the  sweeping  arms  of  Misenum  and  Surrentum, 
were  governed  by  Grecian  laws,  and  surrendered  to  the 
sway  of  Grecian  usages  and  customs.  To  them  the  Roman, 
wearied  with  the  ceaseless  occupations  and  rigid  formality 
of  life  at  Rome,  gladly  retired  for  bodily  relaxation,  to  be 
ennobled,  as  he  might  pretend,  by  intellectual  exercises. 
Neapolis  had  its  schools  and  colleges,  as  well  as  Athens  ;  its 
society  abounded  in  artists  and  men  of  letters,  and  it  en- 
joyed among  the  Romans  the  title  of  the  learned,  which 
comprehended  in  their  view  the  praise  of  elegance  as  well  as 
knowledge."  Every  fifth  year  the  festival  of  the  Quinquennia 
was  celebrated  with  athletic  contests  in  the  arena;  in  its 
theatre  the  genteel  comedy  of  the  school  of  Menander  com- 
bined in  due  proportions  the  decorousness  of  Rome  and  the 
licence  of  its  native  country/1  Here  the  patrician  might 

here  were  the  ends  of  the  earth  covered  with  Cimmerian  darkness,  was  derived 
from  the  reports  of  navigators,  who  had  found  the  sun  obscured  by  volcanic 
smoke  and  ashes,  such  as  have  been  known  to  extinguish  the  light  in  Iceland 
for  months  together. 

1  Seneca,  Ep.  51. :  "  Videbatur  hoc  magis  militare  ex  edito  speculari  late 
longeque  subjecta.    Adspice  quani  positionem  elegerunt,  quibus  sedificia  excita- 
verunt  locis  et  qualia :  scias  nou  villas  esse  sed  castra."    It  is  curious  that  the 
vast  remains  of  the  Lucullan  substructions,  grottoes,  and  arcades,  received  in 
the  middle  ages  the  name  of  Castrum  Lucullanum. 

2  Columell.  x.  134. :  "  Docta  Parthenope."    The  epithet  implies,  besides 
mere  knowledge,  the  polish  and  refinement  of  manners  imparted  by  a  liberal 
education. 

3  Stat.  Sylv.  \\.  5.  89. : 

"  Quid  nunc  magnificas  species  cultusque  locorum, 
Templaque,  et  innumeris  spatia  interstincta  columnis ; 
Quid  geminam  molem  nudi  tectique  theatri, 
Et  Capitolinis  Quinquennia  proxima  lustris ; 


364:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

throw  off  the  toga,  the  sandal  and  the  cap,  and  lounge  in  a 
trailing  robe  barefooted,  his  head  lightly  bound  with  the 
Oriental  fillet,  attended  at  every  step  by  obedient  slaves  and 
cringing  parasites,  but  relieved  from  the  gaze  of  clients  and 
lictors,  from  the  duty  of  answering  questions  and  the  neces- 
sity of  issuing  commands.1  Such  was  the  indolent  life  of  the 
Romans  at  Neapolis  and  its  neighbour  Palaepolis ;  such  it 
was  at  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii.  But  Baiae,  the  most 
fashionable  of  the  Roman  spas,  presented  another  and  more 
lively  spectacle.  Here  idleness  had  assumed  the  form  of  dissi- 
pation, and  the  senator  displayed  as  much  energy  in  amusing 
himself  as  he  had  elsewhere  shown  in  serving  his  country  or 
promoting  his  own  fortunes.  As  soon  as  the  reviving  heats 
of  April  gave  token  of  advancing  summer,  the  noble  and  the 
rich  hurried  from  Rome  to  this  choice  retreat ;  and  here,  till 
the  raging  dogstar  forbade  the  toils  even  of  amusement,  they 
disported  themselves  on  shore  or  on  sea,  in  the  thick  groves 
or  on  the  placid  lakes,  in  litters  and  chariots,  in  gilded  boats 
with  painted  sails,  lulled  by  day  and  night  with  the  sweetest 
symphonies  of  song  and  music,  or  gazing  indolently  on  the 
wanton  measures  of  male  and  female  dancers.  The  bath, 
elsewhere  their  relaxation,  was  here  the  business  of  the  day : 
besides  using  the  native  warm  springs  and  the  vapours  which 
issued  from  the  treacherous  soil,  they  turned  the  pools  of 
Avernus  and  Lucrinus  into  tanks  for  swimming ;  and  in 
these  pleasant  waters  both  sexes  met  familiarly  together, 
and  conversed  amidst  the  roses  sprinkled  lavishly  on  their 
surface.3 

Quid  laudem  risus  libertatemque  Menandri, 
Quam  Romanus  honos  et  Graia  licentia  miscent  ?  " 

It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  the  Quinquennial  games  of  Neapolis  were 
an  institution  of  Domitian,  seventy  years  after  Augustus. 

1  Cicero,  pro  Rabir.  Post.  10. :  "  Deliciarum  causa  et  voluptatis  nonmodo 
cives  Romanes  sed  et  nobiles  adolescentes,  et  quosdam  etiam  senatores,  summo 
loco  natos,  non  in  hortis  et  suburbanis  suis,  sed  Neapoli  in  celeberrimo  oppido, 
cum  mitella  saepe  vidimus."  See  in  the  same  place  what  scandal  might  be 
caused  by  the  use  of  the  pallium. 

*  For  the  amusements  of  Baiae  see  Tibullus,  iii.  5. ;  Martial,  iv.  57.,  x.  30., 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  305 

But  I  have  brought  the  reader  from  the  provinces  to 
Italy :  I  now  assume  the  graver  task  of  introducing  him  to 
Rome. 

From  whichever  side  of  Italy  the  stranger  approached  the 
imperial  city,  he  emerged  from  the  defiles  of  an  amphitheatre 
of  hills  upon  a  wide  open  plain,  near  the  centre  Approach  to 
of  which  an  isolated  cluster  of  eminences,  moder-  Bome- 
ate  in  height  and  volume,  crowned  with  a  vast  assemblage  of 
stately  edifices,  announced  the  goal  towards  which  for  many 
a  hundred  miles  his  road  had  been  conducting  him.    There 
were  two  main  routes  which  might  have  thus  led  him.  from 
the  provinces  to  the  capital,  the  Appian  from  Greece  and 
Africa,  and  the  Flaminian  from  Gaul ;   but  the 

,,         ...         ...    ,  ...    The  roads. 

lines  of  the  Servian  wall,  which  still  bounded 
Rome  in  the  age  of  Augustus,  were  pierced  with  eighteen 
apertures,  each  of  which  admitted  a  well-appointed  road  from 
the  nearer  districts  of  the  peninsula.  The  approach  to  the 
greatest  of  cities  was  indicated  also  by  works  of  another 
kind,  the  most  magnificent  and  imposing  in  their  character 
of  any  Roman  constructions.  In  the  time  of  Augustus  seven 
aqueducts  brought  water  from  distant  sources  to 

*  .  The  aqueduct. 

Rome,  borne  of  these  streams  indeed  were  con- 
veyed underground  in  leaden  pipes  throughout  their  whole 
course, -till  they  were  received  into  reservoirs  within  the  walls, 
where  they  rose  to  the  level  required  for  the  supply  of  the 
highest  sites.  Others,  however,  entered  the  city  on  a  succes- 
sion of  stone  arches,  and  of  these  the  Aqua  Marcia,  which 
was  derived  from  the  Yolscian  mountains,  was  thus  sump- 
tuously conducted  for  a  distance  of  7000  paces  before  it 

xi.,  80. ;  Ovid,  Art.  Amand.i.  255. ;  and  especially  Seneca,  Ep.  51. :  "  Videre 
ebrios  per  litora  errantes,  et  comissationes  navigantium,  et  symphoniarum 
cantibus  perstrepentes  lacus  .  .  .  praeternavigantes  adulteras  dinumerare,  et 
aspicere  tot  genera  cymbarum  variia  coloribus  picta,  et  fluitantem  toto  lacu 
rosam,  et  audire  canentium  nocturna  convicia."  He  also  calls  it,  more  com- 
pendiously, "  diversorium  vitiorum."  Ovid,  I.  c. : 

"  Hinc  aliquis  vulnus  referens  in  pectore  dixit : 
Non  hiec,  ut  fama  est,  unda  salubris  erat." 


366  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

reache'd  the  brow  of  the  Esquiline  Hill.1  These  monuments 
of  the  pomp  and  power  of  the  people  to  whose  wants  they 
ostentatiously  ministered,  were  rendered  the  more  impressive 
from  the  solitudes  in  which  for  many  miles  they  planted  their 
giant  footsteps.  The  Campagna,  or  plain  of  Rome,  at  the 
present  day  the  most  awful  image  of  death  in  the  bosom  of 
life  anywhere  to  be  witnessed,  was  already  deserted  by  the 
swarms  of  population  which  three  centuries  before  had  made 
it  the  hive  of  Italy.  The  fertile  fields  of  the  Hernici  and 
i  had  been  converted  into  pasture  land,  and 


Solitude  of  the  ,,.  ,.  A,  .,  ,,       ,      .  f 

country  round  the  cultivators  of  the  soil,  once  the  denizens  oi  a 
hundred  towns  and  villages,  had  gone  to  swell 
the  numbers  of  the  cities  on  the  coast.  Even  the  fastnesses 
in  the  hills  had  been  abandoned  in  the  general  security  from 
external  attack  ;  while  the  patrician  villas,  with  which  central 
Italy  was  studded,  were  buried  in  the  shade  of  woods  or  the 
cool  recesses  of  the  mountains.  For  many  months,  it  may  be 
added,  the  heat  was  too  oppressive  for  journeying  by  day, 
whenever  it  could  be  avoided  ;  the  commerce  of  Rome  was 
chiefly  carried  on  by  means  of  the  river  ;  a  and  the  necessities 
of  warfare  no  longer  required  the  constant  passing  and  re- 
passing  at  all  hours  of  soldiers,  couriers,  and  munitions.  The 
practice  of  riding  by  night  seems  to  have  been  generally 
adopted,  so  that  the  movement  on  the  roads  gave  little  sign 
by  daylight  of  the  vicinity  of  so  vast  a  haunt  of  human  beings 
with  their  manifold  interests  and  occupations.*  Nor  was  the 

1  Strabo,  v.  3.  ;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxi.  3.  24.     Corrected  by  Frontinus  in 
his  special  treatise  on  the  aqueducts,  c.  7. 

1  There  are  picturesque  allusions  to  the  movement  on  the  river  in  Pro- 
pertius,  i.  14.  : 

"Et  modo  tarn  celeres  mireris  eurrere  lintres, 
Et  modo  tarn  tardas  funibus  ire  rates  :  " 

and  Martial,  iv.  64.  : 

"  Quern  nee  rumpere  nauticum  celeusma, 
Nee  clamor  valet  helciariorum." 

*  Many  indications  might  be  alleged  of  the  frequency  of  night  travelling. 
The  Allobroges  were  circumvented  on  their  leaving  Rome  in  the  evening, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

proximity  of  so  great  a  city  indicated  long  before  arriving 
at  its  gates  by  suburbs  stretching  far  into  the  surrounding 
plain.  The  rhetorical  flights  of  certain  writers  who  would 
assure  us  of  the  contrary,  and  persuade  us  that  Rome  sent 
forth  her  feelers  as  far  as  Aricia  and  Tibur,  and  that  many 
cities  were  attached  to  it  by  continuous  lines  of  building,  are 
plainly  refuted  by  the  fact  that  groves,  villages,  and  separate 
houses  are  repeatedly  mentioned  as  existing  within  three  or 
four  miles  of  the  capital.1 

The  solemn  feeling  with  which,  under  such  circumstances, 
a  great  city  would  naturally  be  approached,  was  redoubled 
by  the  wayside  spectacle,  peculiarly  Roman,  of  -r 
the  memorials  of  the  dead.  The  sepulchres  of  roadside- 
twenty  generations  lined  the  high  roads  for  several  miles 
beyond  the  gates ;  and  many  of  these  were  edifices  of  con- 
siderable size  and  architectural  pretension :  for  it  was  the 
nobles  only  Avhose  houses  were  thus  distinguished,  and  each 
patrician  family  pointed  with  pride  to  its  own  mausoleum, 
in  which  it  gathered  the  ashes  of  its  members,  and  often  of 
its  slaves  and  freedmen,  beneath  a  common  roof.  Flanked 
by  such  rows  of  historic  marble,  and  crossed  by  the  gaunt 
shadows  of  funereal  cypresses,  the  Appian,  the  queen,  as  it 
was  proudly  termed,  of  all  Ways,  as  the  oldest,  the  longest, 
and  the  most  frequented,  approached  the  city  from  the  south.3 
At  five  miles'  distance  from  the  walls  it  traversed  the  famous 
plain  where  the  Horatii  decided  the  fate  of  the  young  repub- 
lic, and  where  the  monuments  of  the  Roman  and  Sabine 
champions  indicated  the  spots  on  which  each  had  fallen.3 

Catilina  made  his  exit  from  the  city  at  night ;  so  did  Curio  and  Antonius. 

Comp.  Juvenal,  x.  19.: 

"  Pauca  licet  portes  argenti  vascula  puri 

Nocte  iter  ingressus." 
1  See  the  passages  of  the  ancients,  and  ill-considered  inferences  of  the 

moderns,  in  De  la  Malle,  Econ.  Pol.  i.  375. 

a  Stat.  Sylv.  ii.  2.  12. :  "  Appia  longarum  teritur  Regina  viaruro." 

1  Liv.  i.  25.;  Dionys.  Hal.  Antig.  Rom.  iii.  18.    The  modern  topographer 

Canina  accounts  for  a  bend  in  the  road  at  this  point,  as  meant  to  avoid  the 

desecration  of  these  sacred  memorials.   Annali  del  Institute,  &c.,  1852,  p.  268. 


368  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

X  early  at  the  first  milestone,  as  measured  from  the  Servian 
gates,  it  passed  under  the  arch  of  Drusus,  and  thence  de- 
scended a  gentle  slope  into  the  hollow  of  the  Aqua  Crabra.1 
The  monuments  of  the  dead  now  lay  closer  together.  Here 
were  the  sepulchres  of  the  Scipios,  the  Furii,  the  Manilii,  the 
Servilii,  Calatini  and  Marcelli ;  of  which  the  first  four  have 
been  already  discovered,  the  rest  still  await  the  exploration 
of  the  curious.1  Here  were  laid  under  a  common  dome,  in 
cells  arranged  along  the  walls,  the  ashes  of  the  slaves  of  Au- 
gustus and  Livia.  Hard  by  the  gate  reposed  the  remains  of 
the  base  Horatia,  slain  by  a  patriot  brother  for  her  devotion 
to  a  foreign  lover.  Beside  the  rivulet,  on  the  southern 
slope,  perhaps,  of  the  Caelian  Hill,  was  the  reputed  grotto 
of  Egeria,  once  rudely  scooped  out  of  the  rock ;  but  its 
native  simplicity  had  long  been  violated  by  the  gaudy  pomp 
of  architecture  and  sculpture.3  On  the  descent  to  the  Aqua 
Crabra,  the  temple  of  Mars  crowned  the  eminence  which 
fronted  the  gate  of  the  city,  the  spot  from  which  the  proces- 
sion of  the  knights  to  the  Capitol  on  the  Ides  of  Julius  took 
its  commencement4  Still  nearer  to  the  gate,  on  the  right 

He  thinks  that  the  actual  monuments  have  been  discovered  in  the  most  recent 
excavations. 

1  Fragments  of  the  first  milestone  have  been  discovered  at  512  palms 
(about  120  yards)  beyond  the  Porta  S.  Sebastiano.  Canina,  Annali,  1851, 
p.  317.  The  arch  of  Drusus  stands  a  little  within  that  modern  gate. 

*  Go.  Tusc.  Disp.  L.  5.     The  excavations  oT  the  last  few  years  extend  from 
the  fourth  to  the  ninth  milestone.     Besides  the  foundations  of  villas,  temples, 
and  sepulchres,  many  inscriptions  have  been  brought  to  light,  which  appear, 
however,  in  almost  every  case  to  belong  to  the  later  periods  of  the  empire. 
It  is  possible,  from  the  single  word  "  Cotta,"  which  can  now  be  read  upon  the 
Casal  rotondo,  a  monument  of  similar  character  to  that  known  by  the  name 
of  Caecilia  Metella,  that  this  was  the  tomb  of  Messala  Corvinus.     See  Canina, 
in  Annali,  1851. 

*  Juvenal,  iii.  18. 

4  The  temple  of  Mars  stood  on  an  acclivity  (Clivus  Martis),  and  faced  the 
Porta  Capena  :  "  quern  prospicit  ipsa  Appositum  tectae  porta  Capena  viae."  It 
was  probably,  therefore,  on  the  descent  to  the  Aqua  Crabra,  in  going  towards 
the  city.  That  there  was  some  interval  between  it  and  the  gate  appears  from 
Livy,  i.  33. :  "  semitam  saxo  quadrato  a  Capena  porta  ad  Martis  struxerunt." 
The  lowering  of  this  hill  is  recorded  on  an  inscription  in  Gruter :  "  Clivum 
Martis  pec.  publica  in  planitiem  redegerant." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  369 

side  of  the  road,  were  the  twin  temples  of  Honour  and  Vir- 
tue, vowed  by  the  great  Marcellus  for  his  conquest  of  Syra- 
cuse, which  he  had  adorned  with  the  earliest  spoils  of  foreign 
painting.  From  the  steps  of  these  temples  the  populace  had 
greeted  Cicero  on  his  return  from  exile.  The  gate,  surnamed 
Capena,  dripped  constantly  with  the  overflowings  of  the  Aqua 
Appia,  and  of  a  branch  of  the  Marcia  brought  there  to  join 
it :  the  united  stream  was  carried  over  the  arch  on  its  way  to 
the  Aventine.  Here  we  enter  Rome :  the  road  Entrance  to 
has  become  a  street ;  houses,  hitherto  inter-  Rome- 
spersed  between  monuments  and  temples,  have  now  become 
dense  and  continuous.  The  avenue  is  still,  however,  broad 
and  straight  for  the  convenience  of  military  processions. 
Soon  it  forks  into  two  ways,  still  following  the  direction  of 
the  hollows  between  the  hills :  the  one,  turning  to  the  right 
between  the  Palatine  and  Cselian,  was  conducted  to  the  Velia, 
the  Esquiline  and  the  Forum,  till  it  arrived  at  the  golden 
milestone  at  the  foot  of  the  Capitol ;  the  other,  to  the  left, 
entered  one  extremity  of  the  Circus  Maximus,  beneath  the 
Palatine  and  Aventine,  to  pass  out  of  it  at  the  other,  and 
reach  the  same  termination  through  the  Forum  Boarium  and 
the  Velabrum.1 

The  seven  hills  of  Rome  have  been  diversely  enumerated, 
and  admit,  indeed,  of  being  multiplied  to  a  much  greater 
number,  or,  regarding  them  from  a  different  The  Beven  hl]la 
point  of  view,  of  being  not  less  considerably  ofRome- 
reduced.  The  Aventine  is  the  only  eminence  among  them 
wholly  distinct  and  separated  from  the  others.  The  Palatine 
is  connected  with  the  Esquiline  by  the  low  ridge  or  saddle 

1  There  was  unquestionably  a  communication  through  the  circus  longi- 
tudinally for  the  triumphal  processions  ;  but  it  is  not  likely  that  this  was  kept 
open  for  ordinary  traffic.  The  usual  thoroughfare  must  hare  run  alongside 
the  outer  wall  of  the  circus,  and  was  perhaps  conducted  under  the  arcades 
which  supported  the  upper  seats  of  that  edifice.  The  upper  part  of  the  circus 
was  connected  with  the  buildings  on  the  Palatine  on  one  side,  and  probably 
with  those  on  the  Aventine  on  the  other,  the  whole  width  of  the  valley  between 
being  thus  occupied  by  its  extensive  structures.  The  Aqua  Crabra,  we  must 
suppose,  was  carried  in  a  tunnel  beneath  it. 
VOL.  iv. — 24 


370  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  the  Velia,  and  the  Capitoline  was  in  like  manner  attached 
at  its  northern  extremity  to  the  Quirinal,  till  severed  from 
it  by  an  artificial  cutting  a  century  after  Augustus.  The 
Quirinal,  the  Viminal,  the  Esquiline  and  the  Cselian,  to  which 
may  be  added  the  extra-mural  eminence  of  the  Pincian,  are 
in  fact  merely  tongues  or  spurs  of  hill  projecting  inwards 
from  a  common  base,  the  broad  table-land  which  slopes  on 
the  other  side  almost  imperceptibly  into  the  Campagna.  On 
approaching  Rome  from  the  north  the  eye  was  at  once  arrest- 
ed by  the  abrupt  escarpment  of  the  Capitoline,  which  sufficed 
to  exclude  from  it  all  view  of  the  city ;  but  from  the  south 
or  east  it  was  carried  gently  upwards  along  the  rising  slopes, 
and  allowed  to  overleap  the  depressions  which  lay  beyond 
them,  of  the  Suburra,  the  Circus,  the  Velabrum  and  the 
Forum,  in  which  the  densest  buildings  of  the  city  nestled, 
till  it  lighted  on  the  heights  of  the  Capitoline  and  the  sum- 
mits of  the  Etruscan  mountains  in  the  distance. 

The  Palatine  Hill,  which  was  closely  embraced  by  the 

double  arms  of  the  Appian  Way, — the  site  of  the  city  of 

Romulus,  the  cradle  of  imperial  Rome, — was  an 

The  Palatine. 

elevation  of  about  130  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea.1  With  some  assistance  from  art  it  was  made  to  slope 
abruptly  on  every  side,  though  at  its  junction  with  the  Velia 
its  height  was  not  more  than  half  that  which  has  been  as- 
cribed to  the  mass  in  general.  It  formed  a  trapezium  of 
solid  rock,  two  sides  of  which  were  about  300  yards  in  length, 
and  the  others  about  400  :  the  area  of  its  summit,  to  compare 
it  with  a  familiar  object,  was  nearly  equal  to  the  space  be- 
tween Pall  Mall  and  Piccadilly,  in  London.  Along  the  brow 

1  This  and  subsequent  measurements,  taken  from  M.  Bunsen's  work  on 
Rome,  refer  of  course  to  the  present  elevation.  Some  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  degradation  of  the  summits.  At  the  same  time  the  hollows  hare 
been  filled  up  to  the  depth,  in  some  places,  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  It  must 
be  remembered  that  the  bed  and  water-line  of  the  Tiber  hare  also  risen,  though 
probably  in  a  less  degree.  The  crown  of  the  arch  of  the  Cloaca  at  its  em- 
bouchure stands  now  very  little  above  the  mean  level  of  the  river.  We  are 
told  that  in  ancient  times  the  tunnel  could  be  navigated  by  boats,  and  admitted 
a  waggon  loaded  with  hay :  but  this  perhaps  supposes  the  water  at  its  lowest. 


.   UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  371 

of  the  escarpment  ran,  we  must  suppose,  the  original  walls  ; 
but  no  fragments  of  them  remain,  nor  have  our  authorities 
preserved  any  notice  of  their  exact  position.  The  site  of 
two  of  the  gates  may  be  pointed  out  perhaps  at  the  base  of 
the  cliffs ;  but  it  is  possible  that  these  mark  the  apertures, 
not  in  the  defences  themselves,  but  in  the  sacred  enclosure 
of  the  pomo2rium  beyond  them.1  This  fanciful  limitation 
had  been  traced  round  the  foot  of  the  hill,  after  the  Etruscan 
fashion,  with  a  plough  drawn  by  a  bull  and  a  heifer,  the  fur- 
row being  carefully  made  to  fall  inwards,  and  the  heifer  yoked 
on  the  near  side,  to  signify  that  strength  and  courage  are  re- 
quired without,  obedience  and  fertility  within  the  city.2  The 
broad  ways  which  encircled  the  Palatine  skirted  the  borders 
of  the  pomceriura,  and  formed  the  route  of  the  triumphal 
march,  and  of  the  religious  and  political  processions.3 

The  locality  thus  doubly  inclosed  was  reserved  for  the 
temples  of  the  gods  and  the  residence  of  the  ruling  race,  the 
class  of  patricians,  or  burghers,  as  Niebuhr  has 

,    The  Palatine 

taught  us  to  entitle  them,  which  predominated  occupied  by 
over  the  dependent  commons,  and  only  suffered  paT&fanresi- 
them  to  crouch  for  security  under  the  shadow 

1  The  Porta  Mugionis,  the  present  access  to  the  Palatine  from  the  north 
near  the  arch  of  Titus,  and  the  Porta  Romana  on  the  west,  near  the  church  of 
S.  Teodoro.  There  was  probably  a  third  gate  at  the  south-eastern  corner  of 
the  hill,  where  Severus  afterwards  built  his  Septizonium,  to  make  the  approach 
to  the  city  from  Africa,  i.  e.  by  the  Appian  Way,  more  imposing. 

»  Varro,  L.  L.  v.  32.;  Plut.  Rom.  11.  From  Tac.  Ann.  xii.  26.,  it  ap- 
pears that  this  Etruscan  fashion  referred  to  the  pomcerium,  not  to  the  walls. 

3  The  line  of  the  Triumphal  Way  has  been  referred  to  hi  another  place 
(ch.  xix.).  Becker  has  described  it  more  closely.  It  seems  to  have  run  from 
the  Porta  Carmentalis  (I  omit  the  difficult  question  about  the  Porta  Trium- 
phalis),  along  the  Vicus  Jugarius,  up  one  side  of  the  Velabrum,  and  down  the 
other  again  by  the  Via  Nova,  thence  through  the  circus,  &c.  In  this  way  it 
made  a  complete  circuit  of  the  original  city  on  the  Palatine,  and  had  doubtless 
a  religious  significance.  Compare  also  the  lustra!  procession  round  the  pomceria, 
in  Lucan,  i.  592. : 

"Turn  jubet  et  totam  pavidis  a  civibus  Urbem 
Ambiri,  et  festo  purgantes  moenia  lustro 
Longa  per  extremes  pomoeria  cingere  fines 
Pontifices,  sacri  quibus  est  permissa  potestas.  .  .  ." 


372  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  the  walls  of  Romulus.  The  Palatine  was  never  occupied 
by  the  plebs.  In  the  last  age  of  the  republic,  long  after  the 
removal  of  this  partition,  or  of  the  civil  distinctions  between 
the  great  classes  of  the  state,  here  was  still  the  chosen  site 
of  the  mansions  of  the  highest  nobility.  Here  stood  the 
famous  dwelling  of  the  tribune  Drusus,  whose  architect  pro- 
posed so  to  fence  it  with  walls  and  curtains  that  its  owner 
should  be  secluded  from  the  observation  of  the  citizens  below. 
The  tribune's  answer,  father  build  it  so  that  all  my  country- 
men may  see  me,  implied  not  only  that  he  would  be  visible 
by  all,  but  accessible  to  all  also.  The  site  of  this  house  can- 
not be  fixed  with  certainty ;  but  it  seems  probable  from  this 
anecdote,  that  it  overlooked  the  Forum,  and  stood  therefore 
on  the  north  side  of  the  hill,  not  far  from  the  Porta  Mugionis. 
It  became  the  property  of  Crassus,  and  was  bought  of  him  by 
Cicero ;  it  was  razed,  as  we  have  seen,  by  Clodius,  but  the 
vacant  space  was  restored  to  its  recent  possessor,  after  whose 
death  we  hear  of  its  passage  into  the  hands  of  a  noble  named 
Censorinus.  The  house  of  JEmilius  Scaurus  was  another 
patrician  mansion  in  this  locality.  There  seems  reason  to 
believe  that  it  stood  at  the  north-eastern  angle  of  the  hill, 
overlooking  the  valley  since  occupied  by  the  Colosseum  and 
the  arch  of  Constantine.1  This  mansion  also  passed  through 
various  hands  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  generations :  it 
was  famous  for  the  size  and  splendour  of  its  columns,  of  the 
costly  marble  afterwards  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Lu- 
cullus.4  Contiguous  to  the  dwelling  of  Cicero  was  that  of 
his  enemy  Clodius :  the  price  the  tribune  had  given  for  it, 
says  Pliny,  agreed  with  the  madness  of  a  king  rather  than 

1  See  Dezobry,  Rome  sous  Auguste,  L  156.  The  topographical  parf  of 
this  generally  valuable  book  is  founded  on  some  inveterate  errors,  and  can 
only  occasionally  be  made  serviceable. 

s  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  xxxvi.  2.  These  columns,  four  in  number,  were  thirty- 
eight  feet  in  height,  and  adorned  the  atrium  of  the  house.  They  were  the 
largest  of  the  whole  number  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  which  Scaurus  had 
conveyed,  in  his  aedileship,  to  Rome  (A.  c.  696)  for  the  decoration  of  a  tem- 
porary theatre.  They  were  afterwards  used  in  the  theatre  of  Marcellus. 
Ascon.  in  Oral,  pro  Scaur. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  373 

the  dignity  of  a  Roman  senator.1  The  Regia,  the  official 
residence  of  Caesar  as  chief  pontiff,  which  lay  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill,  abutting  on  the  Forum,  may  have  thus  been  placed 
immediately  below  it.  We  may  amuse  ourselves  with  imagin- 
ing the  flight  of  steps  and  the  wicket  in  the  garden  wall, 
which  admitted  Pompeia's  gallant  to  the  mysteries  of  the 
Bona  Dea.  Agrippa,  and  after  him  Messala,  occupied  the 
house  which  had  belonged  to  Antonius  on  the  Palatine  ;  and 
Domitius  Calvinus,  who  triumphed  over  Spain  in  715,  devoted 
a  large  portion  of  his  spoils  to  the  construction  of  a  mansion 
in  this  quarter  also.*  But  a  spot  of  more  interest  than  these 
in  the  imperial  annals  was  that  which  bore  the  residence  of 
Augustus  himself.  From  the  modest  house  in  which  he  first 
saw  the  light,  the  dwelling  of  his  father  Octavius,  which 
was  also  on  the  Palatine,  he  removed  at  a  later  pe-  q^  palace  of 
riod  to  the  mansion  of  Hortensius,  on  the  same  Augustus. 
hill ;  and  there  he  continued  to  abide,  though  lodged  far  be- 
neath the  dignity  of  his  position,  in  the  height  of  his  power, 
till  it  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  748.3  The  citizens  insisted 
on  contributing  to  its  restoration  on  a  grander  scale ;  and 
their  subscriptions  must  have  been  universal  if,  as  we  read, 
the  emperor  refused  to  accept  more  than  a  single  denarius 
from  each.  The  residence  of  the  chief  of  the  state  began 
already  to  be  known  from  its  situation  as  the  Palatium  or 
palace.  Augustus,  in  his  care  not  to  press  on  the  limits  of 
popular  favour,  pretended  to  regard  the  dwelling  thus  erected 
for  him  as  the  property  of  the  public,  and  relinquished  a  large 
portion  of  it  for  the  recreation  of  the  citizens.4  It  was  pro- 
bably connected  with  the  Regia,  and  its  remains  are  accord- 
ingly to  be  looked  for  in  the  north-western  angle  of  the  hill, 

1  Plin.  H.  N.  xxxvi.  24.  2. 

3  Dion,  xlviii.  42.,  liii.  27. 

*  For  the  emperor's  changes  of  residence  see  Suetonius,  Oct.  5,  51,  "72. ; 
and  Dion,  liii.  16.,  Iv.  12.  The  house  of  Octavius  was  probably  on  the  Ger- 
malus,  a  portion  of  the  Palatine  Hill,  and  the  Scales  Annulariae  descended 
from  it  to  the  Velabrum. 

4  Dion,  Iv.  12.:  rfyv  oiKtav  oi'/coSouijo-a?   4S^noffi<afft   iraffav  ....  Iv    tv 
TO??  iSi'ou  aaa  xa.1  ev  rots  xoivols 


374  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

where  indeed  some  foundations  have  been  discovered  which 
may  have  really  appertained  to  it.  Tiberius  also  built  a  man- 
sion by  the  side  of  the  Augustan,  with  which  he  eventually 
connected  it,  and  thus  embraced  within  the  precincts  of  the 
imperial  residence  a  large  part  of  the  western  side  of  the 
Palatine.  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  later  emperors  ex- 
tended these  limits,  and  connected  dome  with  dome,  and  at 
last  bill  with  bill,  by  arcades,  bridges,  and  substructions  of 
enormous  dimensions. 

The  Palatine  was  ascended  in  more  than  one  direction  by 
flights  of  steps,  and  if  there  was  any  road  for  wheel-carriages 
Temples  <m  the  to  **&  summit,  it  was  used  perhaps  only  for  the 
Palatine.  convenience  of  religious  solemnities.  The  houses 

of  the  nobility  here,  as  in  other  parts  of  Rome,  were  isolated 
structures,  placed  at  the  caprice  of  their  owners,  surrounded 
by  gardens,  and  never  regularly  disposed  in  streets,  an  ar- 
rangement which  was  confined  to  the  lower  level  and  infe- 
rior habitations  of  the  city.  They  were  interspersed  with 
temples,  colonnades  and  sacred  groves.  On  the  summit  of 
the  Palatine  stood,  among  many  others,  the  temples  of  Cybele 
and  Juno  Sospita,  of  Luna,  of  Febris,  of  Faith  and  Fortune, 
of  Mars  and  Vesta :  but  none  of  these  was  so  illustrious  as 
that  of  Apollo,  the  emperor's  patron,  which  was  dignified 
by  a  spacious  area  inclosed  by  porticos  where  the  trophies 
of  all  nations  were  suspended.  To  this  temple  was  also 
attached  the  celebrated  library,  in  two  compartments,  devoted 
respectively  to  the  writings  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.1 
On  the  slopes  of  the  hill,  or  immediately  at  its  foot,  were 
temples  of  Victory  and  of  Jupiter  Stator,  bordering  upon  the 
Forum :  the  shrine  of  Pan,  called  also  the  Lupercal,  stood  at 
the  entrance  to  the  Velabrum.9  On  the  crest  which  over- 

1  Suet.  Oct.  29.;  Veil.  iii.  81.;  Dion,  liii.  1. 
*  Virgil,  j£n.  viii.  ex.tr.  : 

"  Ipse  sedens  niveo  candentis  limine  Phoebi, 

Dona  recognoscit  populorum,  aptatque  superbis 

Postibus." 

We  may  remember  how  throughout  this  book  the  poet  revels  in  allusions  to 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  375 

looked  the  circus  was  a  venerable  monument,  which  pretended 
to  be  the  regia  of  Romulus  and  Numa,  and  also  a  square 
mass  of  masonry,  to  which  was  given  the  name  of  Roma 
Quadrata,  supposed  to  have  some  mysterious  connexion  with 
the  fortunes  of  the  city,  beneath  which  certain  precious  amu- 
lets were  deposited.1 

While  the  Romans  were  fortifying  themselves  on  the 
Palatine,  the  neighbouring  summits  did  not  remain  unoccu- 
pied. The  Quirinal,  the  Viminal,  and  the  Esqui- 

,..,.,  ,  „    ,  ,      The  Quirinal, 

line,  the  three  principal  spurs  of  the  great  north-  viminai,  and  < 
ern  ridge,  were  separated  from  the  Palatine  by  Es<luililie- 
a  swampy  jungle,  and  their  crests  were  crowned  with  the 
strongholds  of  a  rival  tribe.  The  Quirinal  at  least  was  in  the 
hands  of  a  Sabine  colony ;  and  We  may  conjecture  that  the 
settlers  on  the  other  eminences  were  closely  connected  with 
these,  from  the  tradition  of  the  earthen  mound  which  seems 
to  have  closed,  in  remote  antiquity,  the  mouth  of  the  valley 
between  them.3  The  Romans  and  the  Sabines  contended  for 
the  possession  of  the  Capitoline.  This  hill,  the  smallest  of 
the  seven,  was  flung  across  the  hollow  which 

,    ,  j    f  *i_      TT  i.  3       i-i      The  Capitoline. 

descended  westward  from  the  Velia,  and  while 
it  touched  the  Quirinal  of  the  Sabines  at  one  end,  was  sepa- 
rated from  the  Palatine  of  the  Romans  by  the  valley  of  the 
Velabrum  at  the  other.    It  rose  in  two  summits :  the  Sabines 
seized  the  northern ;  the  Romans  established  themselves  on 

the  objects  on  the  Palatine,  and  surrounds  the  residence  of  his  patron  with  a 
halo  of  historic  associations. 

1  Festus,  in  v.  Quadrata,  p.  258. :  "  Quadrata  Roma  in  Palatio  ante  tern- 
plum  Apollinis  (it  lay  towards  the  circus)  dicitur,  ubi  reposita  sunt  qua  solent 
boni  ominis  gratia  in  urbe  condenda  adhiberi  (they  were  bones  of  animals  and 
implements)  quia  saxo  munitus  est  initio  in  speciem  quadratam." 

9  The  early  Sabine  occupation  of  the  Quirinal  is  attested  by  the  presence 
here  of  many  shrines  of  Sabine  divinities,  such  as  those  of  Sancus,  of  Quirinus, 
and  perhaps  of  Flora.  The  college  of  the  Salii  was  at  the  Colline  Gate.  Here 
was  a  house  of  Numa,  the  Sabine  king,  and,  at  a  later  period,  the  temples  of 
the  Sabine  emperors  of  the  Flavian  house.  The  antiquity  of  its  occupation  is 
shown  by  the  Capitolium  Vetus,  the  rival  Capitol,  in  which,  as  in  the  other, 
was  a  temple  common  to  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva.  Varro,  de  Ling.  Lat. 
v.  32.  It  stood  probably  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  facing  the  Forum. 


376  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  southern.1  A  small  rectangular  space  lay  depressed  between 
them,  which  for  convenience  we  may  call  the  Intermontium, 
and  this  the  Romans  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to  make 
their  own.  The  sacred  grove,  or  asylum,  in  which  they 
offered  a  retreat  for  fugitives,  was  meant,  we  may  suppose, 
to  encourage  desertion  from  the  enemy.  The  disputes  be- 
tween the  two  powers  ended  in  their  union  and  coalition ; 
the  morasses  of  the  valley  were  drained  for  their  comitium  or 
place  of  meeting,  and  their  common  forum  or  thoroughfare  ; 
while  the  fortress  of  the  united  confederacy  was  founded  on 
the  northern  summit  of  the  hill  they  shared  between  them, 
and  the  great  temple  of  their  common  patron  Jupiter  on  the 
The  ATX  and  opposite  extremity :  the  one  was  called  specifi- 
capitoiium.  cajiy  the  Arx  or  Citadel ;  the  other  bore  the  au- 
gust name  of  Capitolium."  The  former  contained  only  one 
important  civil  edifice,  the  temple  of  Juno  Moneta,  or  the 
Roman  mint ;  the  latter  was  the  centre  of  the  religious  sys- 
tem of  the  city,  the  spot  where  the  holiest  mysteries  of 
her  faith  were  solemnized  by  the  chief  of  her  priesthood,  the 
consul  or  the  dictator ;  to  which  the  imperator  led  his  con- 
quering legions  preceded  by  the  spoils  and  captives  of  his 
triumph,  and  where  he  returned  his  thanks  for  victory  with 
appointed  sacrifices.  This  was  that  rock  eternal  and  im- 
movable, to  which  the  empire  of  the  world  was  promised, 
and  which  the  race  of  Julius  and  ^Eneas  should  inherit  for 
The  Temple  of  ever  and  ever.  The  temple  of  Jupiter  Capito- 
peiu^o'r  capi-  liaus  was  divided  into  three  cells,  occupied  by 
statues  of  the  king  of  gods  and  Juno  and  Mi- 
nerva, his  assessors ;  the  ancient  divinities  Terminus  and 
Juventas,  who  refused  to  quit  their  wonted  stations  on  the 
foundation  of  the  Capitol,  were  accommodated  with  places 
within  the  sacred  walls.  Here  the  images  of  the  gods, 

1  The  northern  summit,  now  known  as  the  Araceli,  is  the  higher  of  the 
two,  and  rises  161  feet  above  the  sea. 

a  The  respective  sites  of  the  Arx  and  Capitolium  are  still  a  matter  of  con- 
troversy on  which  it  would  hardly  be  proper  to  enter  in  this  work.  I  shall 
have  further  occasion  to  notice  the  question. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  377 

on  occasions  of  peculiar  solemnity,  after  being    paraded 
through  the  city  on  litters,  were  reclined  on  costly  cushions, 
and  invited  to  a  gorgeous  banquet.     The  Jupiter  of  the 
Capitol  was  called  also  the  Tarpeian,  from  the  name  of  the 
cliff  which  fronted  the  Palatine,  a  precipice  eighty  feet  in 
height ;    and  this  was   the  direction  in  which  his  temple 
looked.1      On  the  same  summit  was  a  second 
shrine  of  Jupiter,  under  the  title  of  Feretrius,  Feretrius^and 
or  the  spoil-bearer,  and  another  was  erected  here 
also  to  the  same  divinity  by  Augustus,  under  the  name  of  the 
Thunderer.2    The  Capitoline  was  climbed  perhaps  by  three 
paths ;  of  which  two,  the  Clivus  Asyli  and  the  Clivus  Capi- 
tolinus,  sprang  from  the  Forum  and  ascended  to 
the  Intermontium,  on  the  right  and  left  hand  re-  andMDiivuJ 
spectively.    The  first  of  these,  the  existence  of 
which  is  matter  of  question,  was  probably  a  mere  flight  of 
steps ;  the  other  was  practicable  for  carriages,  and  for  this 
purpose  was  made  to  climb  the  acclivity  with  a  zigzag.    The 
triumphal  chariot  rolled  up  this  path,  and  was  admitted  with- 
in the  fortress  through  the  gate  Porta  Pandana,  midway  on 
the  ascent.    There  was  a  third  access  by  the  flight  of  the 
Hundred  Stairs  from  the  southern  extremity,  where  the  hill 
approached  within  three  hundred   yards  of  the  river.    The 
chief  approach  in  modern  times,  that  from  the  west,  or  the 
Campus  Martius,  was  then  a  sheer  declivity,  and  the  spot  most 
jealously  guarded  along  the  whole  crest  of  the  hill. 

The  Capitoline  was  the  great  bulwark  of  Rome  against 
the  Etruscans  descending  the  Tiber  from  the  north.    But  a 
colony  of  that  people   settled  at  a  very  early  TheCgsUan 
period  on  an  eminence  in  the  opposite  quarter,  H11L 
which  derived  its  name  of  Caelius  from  their  leader  Caeles 
Vibenna.      These   strangers,  it  is  said,  were  transplanted, 

1  Becker  has  fully  shown  that  Mons  Tarpeius  and  Mons  Capitolinus  are 
convertible  terms ;  the  first,  at  least,  being  only  the  earlier,  the  second  the 
later  designation :  hence  the  Jupiter  of  the  Capitol  is  called  sometimes  by  the 
one  name,  sometimes  by  the  other. 

a  Dion,  liv.  4. 


378  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

under  a  convention  with  the  holders  of  the  Palatine,  to  the 
valley  between  that  hill  and  the  Capitoline,  the  memory  of 
which  event  was  preserved  in  the  appellation  of  the  Tuscan 
Street,  which  led  through  the  Velabrum  from  the  Forum  to 
the  river-side.  The  Ccelius  then  fell  into  the  possession  of 
the  Romans,  who  re-peopled  it  with  a  colony  of  Latins  trans- 
planted from  Alba  Longa,  their  recent  conquest.1  In  con- 
sequence, perhaps,  of  this  early  destination,  this  hill  was 
never  a  strictly  patrician  quarter,  although  many  noble  man- 
sions, and  particularly  that  of  Caesar's  officer,  Mamurra,  were 
to  be  found  there ;  it  was  covered  with  the  houses  of  all 
classes  indiscriminately,  and  became,  at  least  under  the  em- 
pire, one  of  the  most  populous  regions  of  the  city." 

The  Aventine,  which  from  its  position  might  well  have 
become  the  most  formidable  rival  of  the  Palatine,  was  con- 
demned by  the  same  caprice  of  fortune  which 

The  Aventine.    ,      _        ,  ,     ,    . 

had  robbed  it  of  the  August  Augury,  on  which 
the  life  of  the  city  depended,  to  play  an  obscure  and  insignifi- 
cant part  in  the  early  history  of  the  Romans.  This  hill  was 
a  holy  spot  reserved  by  the  neighbouring  tribes  for  the  meet- 
ings of  their  confederacy,  of  which  Rome  herself  was  the 
head,  and  was  consecrated  to  Diana,  whose  temple  continued 
for  ages  to  be  the  most  conspicuous  object  upon  it."  When 
appropriated  by  the  Romans  under  Ancus,  it  was  assigned  as 
public  domain  to  the  use  of  the  patricians.  The  ruling  caste 
placed  on  it  some  bands  of  Latins  as  their  tenants  and  clients, 
and  it  was  thus  converted  into  a  plebeian  suburb  of  the 
haughty  Palatine.4  The  space  which  lay  between  the  two 

1  Liv.  i.  30. ;  Strabo,  v.  3.  p.  234. 

a  For  the  palace  of  Mamurra,  who  first  encrusted  his  walls  with  marble, 
see  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  xxxvi.  6. : — for  the  number  of  noble  residences,  Martial, 
xii.  18. :  "Bum  per  limina  te  potentiorum  Sudatrix  toga  ventilat,  vagumque 
Major  Caelius  et  minor  fatigant : " — for  the  mixture  of  all  classes,  Velli.  ii.  130., 
describing  a  fire  which  ravaged  the  Caelian  Hill:  " omnis  ordinia  hominum 
jactura." 

8  Servius  compares  the  Latin  worship  of  the  Aventine  Diana  with  that  of 
the  Ephesian  by  the  Ionian  confederacy.  Livy  considers  it  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  supremacy  of  Rome  by  her  Latin  allies :  i.  45. 

4  Liv.  i.  33. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  379 

hills,  the  valley  of  the  Aqua  Crabra,  had  been  devoted  by 
Romulus  to  the  public  games ;  and  here,  after  the  stream 
was  arched  over  and  the  area  levelled  and  strown  with  sand, 
the  Great  Circus,  a  stadium  600  yards  in  length,  furnished 
seats  for  150,000  spectators  of  the  national  races.  Such  was 
the  extent  of  the  city  and  its  dependencies  when  Servius 
Tullius,  according  to  the  tradition,  resolved  to  The  wails  of 
embrace  the  whole  together  within  a  common  8erviU8- 
line  of  defences.  The  summits  indeed  of  the  precipitous  cliffs 
might  require  no  artificial  fortifications,  and  it  would  seem 
that  the  Capitoline  itself  had  no  other  protection  at  some 
points  than  the  steepness  of  its  natural  escarpment;  but 
dykes  were  thrown  across  the  hollows,  and  the  most  acces- 
sible spots  on  the  hills  were  strengthened  with  mounds  of 
earth  or  masonry.  The  long  level  ridge  from  which,  as  has 
been  described,  the  Esquiline,  Viminal,  and  Quirinal  spring, 
was  fortified  by  a  continuous  ditch  and  rampart,  which  ob- 
tained the  special  appellation  of  the  Servian  Agger.  That 
there  was  no  stone  wall  here  may  be  inferred  not  only  from 
this  title,  but  also  from  the  fact,  already  noticed,  that  Maece- 
nas extended  the  gardens  of  his  palace  on  either  side  of  the 
mound.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  he  would  have  ven- 
tured to  level  a  wall  of  masonry,  but  it  was  easy  to  convert 
an  earthen  terrace,  by  sloping  and  planting,  into  a  pleasant 
promenade  for  the  public.1  The  Servian  lines  continued, 

1  Hor.  Sat.  I.  8.  14.,  referred  to  in  a  former  chapter.  This  account  of  the 
real  character  of  the  Servian  walls  is  confirmed  by  the  almost  total  absence 
of  any  actual  traces  of  them,  though  the  topographers  have  pitched  here  and 
there  upon  substructions  in  the  face  of  the  cliffs  as  remains  of  this  primitive 
fortification.  Already  in  the  time  of  Augustus  the  Greek  antiquarian  could 
find  few  portions  of  them,  on  account  of  the  private  dwellings  which  had  en- 
croached upon  them  :  Sva-fvperov  5ia  ray  ir«pj/\.a/xj8a>'ou<ras  avrb  -no\\ax6Qev 
oiKr\<rfis,  1\vri  8«  riva  pv\arrov  Kara  ir6\\ovs  rtrovs  TTJT  apxaias  KOToo-Keinjr. 
Dion.  Hal.  Ant.  Rom.  iv.  13.  Strabo  certainly  was  no  believer  in  a  continuous 
Servian  wall.  After  noticing  the  agger  as  a  defence  or  a  special  point,  he 
accounts  for  its  exceptional  character,  Sion  'Punaiois  tpoariKev  OVK  airb  rwv 
tpvparuv,  a\\a  curb  ruv  8ir\cav  Kal  TTJS  otkeiaj  apfrrjs  %Xelv  TV  a.ff<pa\(iav  Kal 
TTJP  &\\i)v  finropiav,  Trpo/3\-finara  vonifames  ou  ra  T«t'x*/  TOIS  avfipdffiv,  a\\a 
TOUJ  avtipas  ToTs  relxfffl  (v-  3.  p.  234.). 


380  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

however,  still  to  form  the  nominal  boundary  of  the  city, 
though  the  idea  of  maintaining  them  for  defence  had  long 
been  abandoned  as  superfluous.  While  the  temples  of  the 
Gods  and  the  palaces  of  the  wealthy  were  planted,  as  we 
have  seen,  for  the  most  part  on  the  airy  summits  of  the  hills, 
the  dwellings  of  the  lower  classes  were  clustered  together  in 
the  narrow  valleys  between  them.  The  roads  were  measured 
from  the  gates  of  the  Servian  inclosure  ;  and  here  began  the 
strait  lines  of  their  interminable  avenues.  Within  the  walls 
the  streets  were  laid  out  with  no  such  regularity,  or  rather 
The  valleys  of  ^ey  may  be  said  to  have  grown  up  as  caprice  or 
accident  dictated,  so  that  the  names  of  few  of 
these  confined  and  tortuous  alleys  have  been  preserved,  and 
of  these  few  we  can  seldom  ascertain  the  direction.  The 
Forum  alone  of  all  the  public  places  of  the  city  was  de- 
The  Forum  signed  with  any  approach  to  regularity.  Its  open 
Romanum.  space,  nearly  rectangular  in  form,  was  inclosed 
by  paved  roads  which  skirted  its  border,  and  were  specially 
intended  for  processions.  These  roads  were  lined,  on  the 
edge  where  they  approached  the  bases  of  the  hills,  by  rows 
of  temples  and  public  edifices ;  and  the  limits  of  the  most 
famous  area  in  the  world  may  be  distinctly  traced  to  this  day 
by  the  remains  of  these  historic  monuments.  Strange  it  is  to 
observe  within  how  small  a  space  the  affairs  of  the  greatest 
of  empires  were  transacted.  From  the  slope  of  the  Yelia  to 
the  foot  of  the  Capitoline  its  length  does  not  exceed  three 
hundred  yards,  and  its  breadth,  which  increases  as  it  advances 
westward,  varies  from  about  fifty  to  one  hundred.  The  tem- 
ple of  Julius  on  the  one  height  fronted  that  of  Jupiter  on  the 
other.  On  the  right  stood  the  ancient  temple  of  the  Penates 
and  that  of  the  twin  heroes,  Romulus  and  Remus,  with  the 
spacious  hall  of  Paullus  JEmilius ;  on  the  left  the  shrine  of 
Vesta,  in  which  the  sacred  flame  was  ever  burning,  with  the 
mansion  of  the  chief  pontiff  annexed,  the  temple  of  the  twin 
gods  Castor  and  Pollux,  and  the  basilica  of  Julius  Caesar.  In 
the  time  of  the  republic  the  sides  of  the  Forum  had  been 
lined  with  shops,  having  dwellings  over  them ;  but  these  had 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  381 

been  latterly  displaced  by  sacred  and  civil  buildings,  such  as 
have  been  noticed.  The  line  of  the  Sacra  Via,  which  de- 
scended from  the  Yelia,  under  the  arch  of  Fabius,  and  skirted 
the  Forum  on  the  right,  was  bordered  on  one  side  by  these 
public  edifices,  on  the  other  by  a  range  of  statues  on  pedes- 
tals, or  columns,  forming  an  august  approach  to  the  Capitol, 
which  it  mounted  by  an  oblique  and  gradual  ascent  before 
the  temples  of  Concord  and  of  Saturn.  To  this  avenue,  simi- 
larly adorned  and  directed  towards  the  same  point,  corre- 
sponded the  Nova  Via  on  the  left.  But  the  whole  space  thus 
described  generally  as  the  Forum  Romanum  was  more  pro- 
perly divided  into  two  portions,  of  which  one  slightly  ele- 
vated above  the  other  was  strictly  denominated  the  Comi- 
tium,  and  was  originally  the  place  of  honour  assigned  to  the 
Populus  as  distinguished  from  the  Plebs.  The  Rostrum,  or 
tribunal  for  public  speaking,  which  stood  in  the  centre  of  the 
open  space,  was  turned  at  first  towards  the  Comitium,  and 
away  from  the  Forum :  the  harangues  of  the  orators  were 
addressed  to  the  curies,  and  not  to  the  centuries.  The  bold 
change  by  which  the  Rostrum  was  directed  towards  the 
opposite  quarter  was  the  manoeuvre  of  Livius  Drusus,  the 
popular  tribune  :  but  at  that  time  the  distinction  of  plebs  and 
populus  had  almost  ceased  to  exist ;  the  Comitium  soon  lost 
its  political  significance ;  and  while  the  senators  transacted 
their  affairs  under  the  cover  of  halls  and  temples,  the  mighty 
multitude  of  the  Roman  people  occupied  without  dispute  the 
whole  vacant  space  between  the  Sacred  and  the  New  street, 
and  crowded  without  order  or  distinction  of  places  around 
the  occupant  of  the  political  pulpit.  The  meetings  of  the 
senate  were  held  most  frequently  in  the  Curia  Hostilia,  which 
stood  beneath  the  north-west  angle  of  the  Palatine,  and  was 
flanked,  a  little  in  advance,  by  a  small  building  called  the 
Graecostasis,  in  which  foreign  envoys  awaited  the  summons 
of  the  imperial  assembly.  But  this  curia  had  been  con- 
sumed in  the  Clodian  conflagration,  and  other  halls  or  tem- 
ples were  at  different  times  adopted  at  the  caprice  of  the 
consuls  or  the  emperor.  Year  after  year  the  Roman  Forum 


382  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Enlargement  received  fresh  accessions  of  splendour  and  con- 
of?hdeeF°o?umn  venience.  The  fire  just  referred  to  cleared  a 
Romanum.  space  for  nobler  constructions,  and  first  suggest- 
ed the  idea  of  more  important  changes  and  additions.  With 
the  surrender  of  political  privileges  grew  the  taste  for  osten- 
tatious display  in  the  enlargement  and  decoration  of  the  site 
which  had  once  been  consecrated  to  their  exercise.  The 
colonnades  by  which  the  place  became  surrounded,  connect- 
ing hall  with  hall  and  temple  with  temple,  were  in  the  morn- 
ing the  thoroughfare  of  men  of  business,  but  at  a  later  hour 
were  almost  abandoned  to  the  seekers  of  pleasure  and  dissi- 
pation. The  area  of  the  ancient  Forum  was  found,  however, 
too  narrow  either  for  the  one  use  or  the  other.  Various 
attempts  had  been  made  to  gain  additional  space ;  and  it  was 
with  this  view  perhaps  that  the  rows  of  shops  or  stalls  which 
formerly  inclosed  it  had  been  recently  demolished.  It  was 
not  so  easy  to  remove  the  temples  and  other  consecrated 
objects,  which  continued  to  present  impassable  barriers  to 
extension  at  almost  every  point.  Behind  them,  however,  on 
the  right,  there  was  still  a  space  nearly  level,  reaching  to  the 
foot  of  the  Esquiline  and  Quirinal ;  and  here  on  the  site  of 
the  ancient  grove  of  Argiletum,  and  in  the  jaws  of  the  Su- 
burra, the  population  of  Rome  was  most  densely  crowded  to- 
gether. Overlooked  by  the  temples  and  patrician  mansions 
of  the  Carinae  and  other  surrounding  heights,  the  Argiletum 
and  the  Suburra  were  the  abodes  of  artificers  of  all  kinds,  the 
workers  in  metals  and  in  leather,  the  clothiers  and  perfume- 
The  Argiletum  sellers.  This,  moreover,  was  the  quarter  of  the 
and  Suburra.  booksellers,  and  the  publicans,  of  the  retailers, 
in  short,  of  every  article  of  luxury  and  necessity.  Here  was 
concentrated  much  of  the  vicious  dissipation  of  a  large 
capital ;  and  here  the  young  gentlemen  of  Rome,  just  emerged 
from  dependence  on  their  parents  and  tutors,  might  lounge 
with  friends  or  flatterers,  and  glance  without  control  on  every 
object  of  interest  or  amusement.1  In  earlier  times  the  Su- 

1  "  Quales  in  media  sedent  Suburra."    Martial,  vi.  66.     Compare  Pereius, 
Sat.  v.  32. :— 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  333 

burra  had  been  the  residence  of  many  noble  families,  and  here 
Julius  Caesar  had  himself  been  born ;  but  as  they  advanced 
to  the  highest  pinnacles  of  greatness,  they  had  migrated  to 
the  more  conspicuous  quarters  of  the  Palatine  or  the  Esqui- 
line,  and  fashion  had  now  generally  deserted  the  lower  parts 
of  the  city.  From  the  entrance  of  the  Suburra  branched  out 
the  long  streets  which  penetrated  the  hollows  between  the 
Quirinal,  Viminal,  and  Esquiline,  to  the  gates  pierced  in  the 
mound  of  Servius.  It  was  in  this  direction  that  Caesar  effect- 
ed the  first  extension  of  the  Forum,  by  convert-  The  Formne  of 
ing  the  site  of  certain  streets  into  an  open  space  the  CaesarB- 
which  he  surrounded  with  arcades,  and  in  the  centre  of  which 
he  erected  his  temple  of  Yenus.  By  the  side  of  the  Julian 
Forum,  or  perhaps  in  its  rear,  Augustus  constructed  a  still 
ampler  inclosure,  which  he  adorned  with  the  temple  of  Mars 
the  Avenger.  Succeeding  emperors,  hereafter  to  be  specified, 
continued  to  work  out  the  same  idea,  till  the  Argiletum  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  saddle  of  the  Capitoline  and  Quirinal, 
excavated  for  the  purpose,  on  the  other,  were  both  occupied 
by  these  constructions,  the  dwellings  of  the  populace  being 
swept  away  before  them ;  and  a  space  running  nearly  parallel 
to  the  length  of  the  Roman  Forum,  and  exceeding  it  in  size, 
was  thus  devoted  to  public  use,  extending  from  the  pillar  of 
Trajan  to  the  basilica  of  Constantine.1 

Next  to  the  quarter  of  the  Suburra,  that  of  the  Velabrum, 

"  Cum  blandi  comites,  totaque  impune  Suburra 
Permisit  sparsisse  oculos  jam  candidus  umbo." 

1  The  reader  will  understand  that  these  are  the  conclusions  at  which  I  have 
arrived,  chiefly  under  the  guidance  of  Becker's  Hand-book,  upon  a  subject  on 
which  the  views  of  various  schools  of  Roman  topographers  have  been  widely 
divergent.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  specify  the  ancient  authorities.  The 
general  arrangement  of  the  Roman  Forum  by  Bunsen  and  Becker,  and  the 
German  school  as  opposed  to  the  Italian,  ought  to  be  considered  as  settled  by 
the  recent  excavations,  which  have  revealed  beyond  dispute  the  sites  of  the 
JSmilian  and  Julian  basilicas.  At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Italians,  headed  by  Canina,  have  not  yet  surrendered  their  theory,  that  the 
Forum  extended  longitudinally  towards  the  Tiber,  and  not  towards  the  Velia, 
and  maintain  that  the  Julian  basilica  was  an  encroachment  upon  the  ancient 


384:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Forum,  was  the  most  crowded  por- 
tion of  the  city.    The  hollow  which  descended 

The  Velabrum.    „  __  ,.    J    n 

from  the  Velia,  after  meeting  that  of  the  Suburra, 
turned  obliquely  towards  the  Tiber ;  and  the  Nova  Via, 
which  skirted  the  base  of  the  Palatine,  followed  its  flexure 
from  the  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  and  formed  the 
boundary  of  the  Velabrum  on  one  side,  as  it  had  before 
limited  the  Forum.  But  the  Velabrum,  the  space  between 
the  Palatine  and  the  Capitoline,  was  wide  enough  to  admit 
of  two  other  streets  running  parallel  to  the  Nova,  the  Vicus 
Tuscus  and  the  Vicus  Jugarius.  These  avenues,  descending 
The  Forum  irom  tne  Forum  Roinanum,  opened  upon  the  Fo- 
Boarium.  rum  Boariun^  the  spot  perhaps  where  the  cattle 
destined  for  the  consumption  of  Rome  were  landed  from  the 
barks  on  the  Tiber :  but  they  were  also  the  great  outlets  of 
the  multitudes  which  hurried  from  the  heart  of  the  city  to 
the  shows  of  the  circus,  and  the  recreations  of  the  Campus 
Martius.  The  Vicus  Tuscus,  the  middle  street  of  the  three, 
was  perhaps  the  most  crowded  thoroughfare  of  all,  the 
Cheapside  of  Rome.  The  public  buildings  in  this  quarter 
were  comparatively  few  and  insignificant,  and  we  may  believe 
that  the  whole  space  of  the  Velabrum  was  densely  packed 
with  the  cabins  of  the  industrious  classes. 

The  streets  which  traversed  the  Velabrum  led  direct  to 
the  bank  of  the  Tiber,  and  to  the  oldest  of  the  bridges  of 
ransti-  Rome,  the  Sublicius,  or  bridge  of  piles,  which 
quarter.  connected  the  city  with  the  Transtiberine  quar- 
ter, called  also  Janiculan,  from  the  slope  on  which  it  stood. 
This  district,  rising  in  terraces  from  the  river,  enjoyed  a 
noble  view  of  the  seven  hills  on  the  opposite  bank,  and  was 
also  celebrated  for  its  salubrity,  which  circumstances  com- 
bined to  attract  to  it  the  wealthier  citizens  under  the  later 
republic  and  the  empire,  who  spread  themselves  along  the 
crest  of  the  adjoining  eminences,  and  gradually  occupied  the 
whole  ridge  of  the  Vatican.  The  lower  part  continued  to  be 
the  resort  of  the  poorer  classes.  But  the  importance  of  this 
region  may  be  inferred  from  the  aqueducts  which  were  con- 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  385 

structed  to  supply  it,  the  numerous  bridges  which  connected 
it  with  other  quarters,  the  venerableness  of  its  shrines,  espe- 
cially that  of  the  Goddess  Fortuna,  and  the  station  there  of 
one  cohort  of  the  city  police,  or  Vigiles.  The  island  in  the 
Tiber,  fashioned  at  either  end  into  some  rude  resemblance  to 
a  ship,  was  also  included  in  the  Transtiberine,  and  was  dense- 
ly crowded  with  habitations.  The  gardens  of  Caesar  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  river  have  been  already  described.  Au- 
gustus excavated  a  naumachia,  or  basin  for  the  exhibition  of 
naval  engagements,  by  their  side.  He  surrounded  it  with 
groves  and  walks,  to  which  he  gave  the  names  of  his  grand- 
sons Caius  and  Lucius,  and  supplied  it  with  water,  not,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  from  the  adjacent  river,  but  by 
means  of  an  aqueduct  from  the  lake  Alsietinus,  or  Bracciano, 
in  Etruria. 

We  have  still  to  notice  the  two  regions  beyond  the  Ser- 
vian walls,  in  the  broad  plain  to  the  north  of  the  city,  which 
may  be  designated  by  the  comprehensive  name  The  campus 
of  the  Campus  Martius,  though  that  appellation,  Martius- 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  more  strictly  confined  to  a  cer- 
tain portion  only.  From  the  earliest  period  the  grassy  mead- 
ows which  here  skirted  the  Tiber  had  been  a  resort  for  mili- 
tary exercises,  and  the  recreations  of  leaping,  running,  and 
bathing.  From  the  Porta  Ratumena  and  the  Carmentalis, 
on  either  side  of  the  Capitoline,  the  citizens  poured  after  the 
business  of  the  day,  to  indulge  in  these  sports,  a  custom 
which  survived,  through  the  whole  period  of  the  republic, 
late  into  the  times  of  the  emperors.  Gradually,  however,  the 
space  between  the  walls  and  the  reach  of  the  river  was  en 
croached  upon  by  buildings  of  various  kinds ;  and  Caesar  con- 
templated, as  we  have  seen,  its  extension,  by  giving  a  wider 
sweep  to  the  Tiber.  Here  stood  some  of  the  principal  temples 
of  the  Gods,  and  here,  from  an  early  period,  were  the  septa, 
or  booths,  at  which  the  centuries  polled.  The  elections  were 
originally  a  military  institution,  and  on  this  account  the  citi- 
zens were  summoned  outside  the  walls  to  solemnize  them.1 

1  The  division  of  the  Roman  people  into  classes  and  centuries  had  a  mili- 
VOL.  iv. — 25 


386  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  regulation  that  no  imperator  might  enter  the  city,  led  to 
the  practice  of  convening  the  senate  also  in  the  Campus  Mar- 
tius.  Here  too  was  the  gate  from  which  the  victor,  returned 
from  distant  frontiers,  commenced  his  triumphal  procession  to 
the  Capitol.  Here  was  the  gorgeous  theatre  of  Pompeius, 
with  its  groves  and  porticos,  and  halls  for  business  or  amuse- 
ment. Here  stood  the  Flaminian  circus,  second  only  in  size 
to  the  great  circus  beneath  the  Palatine ;  and  here  were  the 
theatre  of  Marcellus  and  the  portico  of  Octavia,  the  contribu- 
tions of  Augustus  himself  to  the  attractions  of  this  splendid 
region.  Here  also,  further  from  the  city  and  precisely  in  the 
centre  of  the  plain,  still  stands  the  magnificent  Pantheon  of 
Agrippa,  which  constituted  a  portion  only  of  his  extensive 
constructions  in  this  quarter.  Beyond  it  rose  the  amphi- 
theatre of  Taurus,  and  adjacent  to  the  banks  of  the  river  the 
conspicuous  mausoleum  of  the  Csesarean  family.  Up  to  this 
point  the  area  was  perhaps  almost  covered  with  edifices,  but 
beyond  it  there  was  still  a  tract  of  open  meadow,  preserved 
for  the  martial  sports  of  the  Roman  people,  extending  to  the 
modern  Ripetta  and  the  Porta  del  popolo.  The  whole  of 
this  district  north  of  the  Capitoline  is  now  thronged  with 
houses,  and  comprehends  the  chief  part  of  modern  Rome : 
the  remains  of  some  of  the  most  interesting  buildings  of  the 
ancient  city  lie  buried  beneath  the  masses  of  mediaeval  con- 
struction ;  and  no  portion  of  it  has  been  of  necessity  so  im- 
perfectly explored,  or  presents  so  many  insoluble  problems 
to  the  topographer.  It  was  divided  into  two  unequal  por- 
tions by  the  straight  line  of  the  Flaminian  Way,  which  issued 
from  the  city  at  the  northern  angle  of  the  Capitoline.  The 
first  portion  of  this  road  was  known  perhaps  by  the  title  of 
the  Via  Lata,  which  gave  its  name  to  the  region  on  the  right, 
extending  beyond  the  level  of  the  plain  over  the  slope  of  the 
Pincian  hill.  In  the  course  of  time  this  road  was  bordered 

tary  object,  and  the  word  classia  had  originally  the  meaning  of  exercitus. 
Cell.  xv.  27.,  quoting  an  ancient  writer :  "  Centuriata  comitia  intra  pomcerium 
fieri  nefas  esse,  quia  exercitum  extra  urbem  imperari  oportent,  intra  urbem 
jus  non  sit." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  337 

with  houses,  and  the  Corso  of  the  modern  city  runs  at  least 
for  some  distance  on  its  track.1  The  Pincian  itself  was  occu- 
pied by  villas  shrouded  in  extensive  parks  or  gardens,  such 
as  those  of  Lucullus  and  Sallust,  from  whence  it  derived  the 
name  of  Collis  Hortulorum.  From  its  flank  descended  the 
arches  of  the  aqueduct  called  Aqua  Virgo,  one  The  Pincian 
of  the  most  stupendous  works  of  Agrippa,  by  huL 
which  water  was  conveyed  to  the  septa  in  the  Campus  Mar- 
tins." The  Campus  Agrippse,  the  site  of  which  is  not  deter- 
mined, was  a  portion  of  the  plain  which  the  same  great  bene- 
factor laid  out  in  gardens  and  porticos  for  the  recreation 
of  the  citizens,  and  the  convenience  of  the  bathers.  It  con- 
tained the  therma?  which  he  constructed  for  the  public ;  and 
two  of  its  colonnades,  styled  the  Europa  and  the  Neptune, 
were  celebrated  for  the  elegance  of  their  fresco  paintings.3 
Augustus  peopled  the  Campus  with  a  host  of  statues  taken 
chiefly  from  the  Capitol,  where  they  had  accumulated,  as  the 
spoils  of  war  or  the  votive  offerings  of  conquerors,  to  an  in- 
convenient extent.  At  a  later  period  the  Forum  and  other 
public  places  were  deliberately  thinned  of  their  overgrowths 
of  sculpture,  which  amounted,  it  may  be  supposed,  to  many 
thousands  of  specimens,  to  enrich  the  halls,  the  baths,  and 
the  colonnades  of  the  Palaces  of  the  People.* 

1  Martial  (x.  6.)  describes  the  Via  Flaminia  as  running  through  the  plain, 
with  trees  and  detached  houses  by  its  sides : 

"  Quando  erit  ilia  dies,  qua  campus  et  arbor  et  omnis 

Lucebit  Latia  culta  fenestra  nuru  ? 
Quando  morse  dulces,  longnsque  a  Cresare  pulvig, 
Totaque  Flaminia  Roma  videndavia?" 

3  Frontin.  de  Aquceduct.  22. 

3  See  the  allusions  in  Martial,  ii.  14.,  vii.  32.,  iii.  20.    It  has  been  imagined 
that  the  Pantheon  was  originally  constructed  for  a  central  hall,  some  think 
for  a  swimming  bath,  to  the  thermae  of  Agrippa.    See  Bunsen's  Rom.,  iii.  3. 
123.  341. 

4  Suet.  Calig.  34. ;   Dion.  Ix.  6.    The  Campus  Martius  is  described  by 
Strabo  with  more  vivacity  than  is  usual  with  him  (v.  3.  p.  236.).     I  have 
avoided  the  debateable  parts  of  his  description,  over  which  a  furious  battle 
still  rages.    Preller,  however,  the  last  combatant  who  has  entered  the  field, 
especially  against  Becker,  seems  to  me  captious  and  unreasonable. 


388  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

It  would  appear  from  this  review  that  the  densely  popu- 
lated parts  of  Rome  covered  but  a  small  part  of  its  whole 
area,  for  the  summits  of  the  hills  were  generally 

The  population  .    ,    ,  j         •   ,  ,  •  . 

of  Rome  chief-  occupied  by  temples  and  aristocratic  mansions, 
theCiowerepart8  and  large  spaces  even  in  the  intervening  hollows 
were  devoted  to  places  of  public  resort.  The 
vici,  or  streets  of  Rome,  as  far  as  their  names  and  directions 
are  known  to  us,  were  confined  to  the  valleys.  The  houses 
on  the  hills  were  generally  detached  mansions,  surrounded 
in  many  cases  by  gardens.  It  must  be  allowed,  however, 
that  the  clients  of  the  nobles  often  clustered  their  obscure 
tenements  against  the  outer  walls  of  their  patrons'  palaces. 
But  in  the  districts  where  the  masses  of  the  population  were 
collected,  such  as  the  Suburra  and  Velabrum,  every  available 
inch  of  ground  was  seized  for  building,  and  the  want  of  space 
was  compensated  by  elevation.  Perched  upon  the  precipi- 
tous ledges  of  the  hills,  the  houses  rose  to  an  enormous  height 
in  front,  while  in  the  rear  their  elevation  might  often  be  far 
more  moderate.  Rome,  says  Cicero,  rhetorically,  is  sus- 
pended in  the  air;  Rome,  avers  the  more  guarded  Vitru- 
vius,  is  built  vertically ;  Tacitus  speaks  of  houses  rising  from 
the  plain  to  the  level  of  the  Capitoline  summit.1  Augustus 
was  the  first  to  impose  a  limit  by  law  to  their  daring  ascent, 
and  he  was  satisfied  with  fixing  the  greatest  height  at  the 
liberal  allowance  of  seventy  feet.  At  the  same  time,  for  no 
other  purpose,  as  far  as  we  can  divine,  than  to  economize 
space,  their  exterior  walls  were  forbidden,  we  are  told,  to 
exceed  a  foot  and  a  half  in  thickness,  the  minimum,  perhaps, 
which  was  calculated  to  bear  the  weight  of  the  superincum- 

1  Cic.  Leg.  Agr.  ii.  35. :  "  Romam  in  montibus  positam  et  convallibus, 
coenaculis  sublatam  atque  suspensam."  He  compares  it  disadvantageous^ 
with  the  broad  open  spaces  of  the  Greek  city  of  Capua.  Vitruvius  says: 
"  Roma  in  altum  propter  civium  frequentiam  aedificata."  Tacitus,  Hist.  iii. 
71. :  "  JSdificia  quae  in  altum  edita  Capitolii  solum  aequabant."  Aristides,  in 
his  Encomium  Romce,  compares  the  stories  of  Rome  with  the  strata  of  the 
earth's  crust,  and  pretends  that,  if  they  were  all  laid  out  on  one  level,  they 
would  occupy  the  whole  area  of  Italy  from  sea  to  sea. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  389 

bent  mass.1  The  streets,  following  the  tracks  of  the  cattle 
and  herdsmen  of  primitive  antiquity  to  their  pastures  and 
watering  places,  were  narrow  and  winding ;  and  this  may 
account  for  the  fact  that  so  few  of  them  were  important 
enough  to  transmit  their  names  to  history.2  It  was  not  till 
the  gates  had  been  passed  that  the  direction  of  the  roads 
began  to  be  marked  out  deliberately ;  and,  except  the  avenues 
which  were  designed  for  sacred  processions,  or  the  course  of 
which  was  shaped  by  the  narrow  gorges  through  which  they 
ran,  few  perhaps  preserved  for  many  yards  together  the  irk- 
some uniformity  of  a  right  line.3  Narrow  as  these  alleys 
were,  and  little  adapted  for  the  passage  of  wheel-carriages, 
which  indeed  till  a  late  period  were  hardly  used  in  Rome, 
they  were  still  more  confined  above,  by  the  device  of  project- 
ing balconies  from  the  upper  stories.  These  were  known  by 
the  name  of  Ma3niana,  from  the  tribune  Maenius,  who  first 
invented  them  to  accommodate  the  spectators  of  the  proces- 
sions in  the  streets  below.  It  is  probable,  though  we  have 
no  express  testimony  to  the  fact,  that  these  balconies  were 
afterwards  improved  into  hanging  stories,  the  occupants  of 
which  could  sometimes  shake  hands  with  their  neighbours 
opposite.4 

1  Vitruvius,  ii.  8.  Comp.  Juvenal,  iii.  193.:  "Xos  urbem  colimus  tenui 
tibicine  fultam." 

"  See  the  description  of  the  hurried  and  irregular  manner  in  which  the  city 
was  rebuilt  after  its  burning  by  the  Gauls,  in  Livy,  v.  65.  (Comp.  Diodor.  xiv. 
116.)  The  lines  of  the  old  streets  were  probably  preserved,  for  the  most  part, 
as  with  us  after  the  fire  of  London.  Livy,  indeed,  would  have  us  believe  that 
every  citizen  built  for  himself,  as  suited  his  convenience,  without  reference  to 
his  neighbours,  or  to  any  common  plan ;  but  this  cannot,  I  conceive,  have 
been  generally  the  case.  The  preservation,  indeed,  of  the  names  of  the  ancient 
streets  sufficiently  attests  the  contrary. 

3  Strabo  contrasts  the  style  in  which  Rome  was  laid  out  with  the  elegant 
designs  of  the  Greek  city  builders :  TWV  ykp  'EAA^wv  irepl  T&S  mlffeis  fj.d\urTa 
evrvx^fffu  So^dvruv  on  »ce(AAous  iffroxdCovro.  v.  3. 

*  See  Festus  in  voc.  Maeniana :  "  Maenius  ....  primus  ultra  columnas 
extendit  tigna,  quo  ampliarentur  superiora."  The  Digest,  1.  16.  242.  speaks 
of  mseniana  and  suggrundia,  projecting  eaves.  These  projections,  together 
with  the  narrowness  of  the  streets,  gave  a  grateful  shade  (Comp.  Cic.  Acad.  ii. 
22.),  and  on  that  account  were  considered  to  contribute  to  salubrity.  Tac. 


390  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

It  may  be  believed  that  the  roofs  of  the  houses  in  Rome 
were  adapted  to  a  climate  abounding  in  violent  storms  of 

rain,  and  rose  in  steep  ridges,  presenting  some- 
style  of  domes-  „,      ,° 
tic  architec-       times  a  gable  (a  spread  eagle  the  Greeks  would 

have  called  it)  to  the  street.1  The  want  of  glass, 
which  was  hardly  known  up  to  the  imperial  era,  and  but  little 
used  for  dwelling  windows  to  a  late  period,  compelled  the 
Romans  to  make  the  apertures  of  their  houses  few  and  nar- 
row compared  with  those  of  modern  architecture  ; a  but  the 
habit  of  living  through  the  day  almost  entirely  out  of  doors 
would  render  this  deprivation  of  light  less  intolerable.  In 
the  better  class  of  houses,  however,  there  were  windows  pro- 
tected by  shutters  of  lattice  work  with  double  valves.3  The 
most  common  material  for  private  dwellings  was  brick,  which 
not  only  superseded  the  primitive  wood,  but  was  preferred 
for  the  purpose  to  the  stone  of  the  country,  whether  extracted 
from  beneath  the  soil  of  Rome  itself,  or  dug  from  the  quar- 
ries of  Alba,  Gabii,  and  Tibur.  Although  this  stone  was  as 
easily  obtained,  and  was  perhaps  the  cheaper  material,  the 
Romans  gave  a  preference  to  brick,  from  its  applicability  to 
the  construction  of  the  arch,  and  also  for  the  extreme  hard- 
ness and  durability  it  assumed  in  their  hands.  The  old  con- 
suls of  the  republic  truly  built  for  eternity,  when  they  ranged 
tile  upon  tile,  and  embedded  them  in  their  concrete  sand  and 
gypsum.  It  was  a  famous  boast  of  Augustus,  when  he 
pointed  to  the  sumptuous  halls  and  temples  with  which  he 
had  eclipsed  the  modest  merit  of  preceding  builders,  that  he 

Ann.  xv.  43.    Martial,  i.  87. :  "  Vicinus  meus  est  manuque  tangi  De  nostris 
Novius  potest  fenestris."     But  this  may  apply  to  a  next-door  neighbour. 

1  "  Fastigia,  pectinata  tecta ; "  Gr.  irrovto,  rptx^pos.     Upon  this  subject, 
on  which  our  information  is  indistinct,  see  the  note  of  Salmasius,  on  Spartian. 
Pescenn.  12. 

2  Plin.  xxxvi.  66. :  "  Neronis  principatu  reperta  ritri  arte."    This  can  only 
refer  to  its  employment  for  windows.     Comp.  Senec.  Ep.  90. :    "  Quaedam 
nostra  demum  prodisse  memoria  scimus,  ut  speoulariorum  usum,  perlucente 
testa,  clarum  transmittentium  lumen." 

'  Hor.  Od.  \.  25.  1.:  "Junctas  quatiunt  fenestras."     Pers.  iii.  1. :  "Jam 
clarum  mane  fenestras  Intrat,  et  angustas  distendit  lumine  rimas." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  391 

had  found  Rome  of  clay  and  had  left  her  of  marble ;  but 
after  eighteen  centuries  the  marble  has  mostly  vanished  and 
crumbled  into  dust,  while  huge  strata  of  brickwork  still  crop 
out  from  under  the  soil,  a  Titanic  formation  as  imperishable 
as  the  rock  itself.1 

The  temples  of  ancient  Rome  were  all,  as  far  as  we  can 
trace  them,  constructed  on  the  Grecian  pattern ;  that  is,  gen- 
erally in  oblong  masses  of  masonry,  with  long 

1  t  j-  SA  -A-  f  ^      Style  of 

low  roofs,  corresponding  with  the  apex  of  the  temple  arcw- 
pediment.  Though  crowned  perhaps  with  statues  t( 
on  the  summit,  they  scarcely  overtopped,  except  from  their 
position,  the  meaner  buildings  around  them:  the  invention 
of  bells,  the  greatest  of  all  boons  to  architecture,  had  not  yet 
afforded  a  motive  or  excuse  for  raising  the  many  storied  tur- 
ret, or  suggested  the  arrowy  flight  of  the  spire  or  steeple. 
Here  and  there  perhaps  the  watch  tower  of  some  palace  or 
fortress  might  break  the  horizon  of  stone ;  but  these  were 
too  few  and  unimportant  in  character  to  lead  the  eye  of  the 
spectator  upwards,  or  divert  him  from  the  sights  of  splen- 
dour or  squalor  nearer  to  his  own  level.  Nevertheless  there 
was  a  grand  significance  in  the  crests  of  the  hills  encompass- 
ing the  Forum,  crowned  with  a  range  almost  unbroken  of 
columned  temples,  the  dwellings  of  the  Gods,  who  thus 
seemed  to  keep  eternal  watch  over  the  secure  recesses  of  the 
city.  If  neither  the  architecture  nor  religion  of  the  Roman 
pointed  heavenwards,  or  led  to  spiritual  aspirations,  not  the 
less  did  they  combine  to  impress  upon  him,  in  their  harmo- 
nious development,  the  great  idea  of  Paganism,  the  tem- 
poral protection  with  which  the  Powers  of  Nature,  duly 
honoured  and  propitiated,  encircle  their  favourites  among 
men. 

The  dwellings  of  the  citizens  were  of  two  general  classes, 
the  domus  and  the  insulae.  The  former  of  these,  which  we 

1  This  saying  has  been  referred  to  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Strabo  remarks  that 
the  ancients,  occupied  with  more  urgent  carea,  paid  little  attention  to  the 
decoration  of  the  city,  a  merit  which  was  reserved  for  Pompeius,  Caesar,  and 
Augustus,  with  his  friends  and  relatives. 


392  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  domus  and  D^J  ca^  mansions,  were  the  abodes  of  the  nobili- 
insuiae.  ^.y^  ^^  were  constructed  originally  as  separate 

buildings,  inclosed  within  courts  or  gardens,  and  adapted,  at 
least  since  the  latter  years  of  the  republic,  to  the  Greek  fash- 
ion, covering  a  considerable  surface  with  a  single,  or  at  most 
two  stories.  The  application  to  the  private  mansion  of  the 
The  mansions  ornamental  architecture  of  Greece,  which  had 
ofihenobiee.  been  ]Ong  reserved  at  Rome  for  temples  and 
public  edifices,  soon  demanded  the  use  of  the  rich  and  polished 
material  with  which  Greece  abounded,  of  their  own  wealth 
in  which  the  Italians  were  perhaps  hardly  yet  aware.  When 
the  nobles  began  to  build  their  long  columnar  corridors,  they 
required  marble  to  give  variety  by  its  colour  to  the  intermi- 
nable repetition  of  pillar  after  pillar,  and  the  vast  expanse  of 
their  level  pavements.  Crassus,  the  orator,  was  said  to  have 
first  introduced  into  his  house  six  columns  of  Hymettian 
marble.  This  was  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century. 
Soon  afterwards  Lepidus  paved  his  arcades  with  polished 
slabs  from  the  quarries  of  Numidia.  This  nobleman's  palace 
was  reputed  at  that  time  the  finest  domestic  edifice  in  Rome, 
but  thirty-five  years  later  it  was  excelled  by  not  less  than  a 
hundred  rivals.1  Nevertheless,  at  a  still  later  period,  the 
Romans  continued  to  wonder  at  the  inordinate  luxury  of  the 
Orientals,  who  piled  the  richest  marbles  block  upon  block, 
while  the  lords  of  the  world  could  only  afford  to  use  them 
in  thin  flags.* 

The  domus,  it  has  been  said,  were  generally  insulated 
dwellings ;  the  insula?,  or  islands,  on  the  other 

Thecabinsof      ,         -  .      ,      '  ,.       ,  ,     . 

the  poorer  citi-  hand,  were  precisely  the  contrary  of  what  their 
name  should  import,  the  smaller  abodes  of  the 

1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxvi.  2,  8,  24. 

1  Lucan  contrasts  the  magnificence  of  Cleopatra's  palace  with  those  of 
Rome  in  language  which  expresses  the  feeling  probably  of  bia  own  time : 
"Xec  summis  crustata  domus  sectisque  nitebat 
Marmoribus :  stabatque  sibi  non  segnis  Achates. 
Purpureusque  lapis ;  totaque  effusus  in  aula 
Calcabatur  onyx."  Pharsal.  x.  114. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  393 

lower  classes,  closely  connected  together  in  large  blocks  of 
'building,  and  covered  with  a  continuous  roof.1  These  little 
dwellings  were  generally  built  over  the  rows  of  shops  which 
lined  the  area  of  the  streets,  and  were  entered  by  stairs  from 
the  outside,  having  no  connexion  with  the  resorts  of  trade 
and  industry  below  them.  In  a  height  of  seventy  feet  there 
were  probably  from  seven  to  ten  stories,  and  each  of  these 
stories,  and  often  each  chamber  in  them,  might  be  occupied 
by  a  separate  family.3  Being  used  as  little  else  than  sleep- 
ing apartments,  they  accommodated,  in  the  fashion  of  the  age 
and  country,  a  multitude  of  inmates,  the  amount  of  which, 
however,  we  are  totally  at  a  loss  to  estimate.  The  subject, 
indeed,  of  the  population  of  Rome  has  exercised  the  in- 
genuity of  many  inquirers,  but  with  widely  differing  results. 
As  regards  the  accommodation  the  tract  covered  by  the  city 
may  have  afforded,  when  we  have  carefully  measured  the 
circuit  of  the  walls,  and  estimated  the  area  they  enclosed,  we 
are  still  ignorant  both  of  the  capacity  of  the  houses,  and  of 
the  amount  of  empty  space  within  the  inclosure.  In  drawing 
a  comparison,  however,  from  experience  in  our  own  day,  we 
may  observe  that,  if  modern  cities  on  the  one  hand  are  not 
so  closely  built,  nor  their  houses  so  densely  inhabited  as  was 
the  case  with  ancient  Rome,  on  the  other  they  have  no  such 
proportion  of  vacant  space  appropriated  to  gardens,  and 

1  A  law  of  the  twelve  tables  required,  for  security  against  fire,  that  every 
house  should  stand  separate ;  but  it  is  impossible  that  this  can  have  applied, 
even  at  that  early  time,  to  every  single  chamber  in  which  a  separate  family 
was  lodged.     I  consider  the  insula  to  have  originally  been  a  block  of  cham- 
bers, such  as  are  represented  in  the  fragment  of  the  ancient  plan  of  Rome  still 
preserved  on  marble,  which  corresponds  with  the  style  of  arrangement  observed 
at  Pompeii.      These  rows  of  building  were  often  constructed  round  public 
edifices,  and  the  clients,  operative  slaves,  and  freedmen  of  the  noble  were  often 
thus  lodged  against  the  walls  of  his  domus.     If  insula  was  the  term  originally 
given  to  the  aggregate  of  such  dwellings,  it  came  afterwards  to  be  applied 
to  the  component  members.     Thus  Tacitus  uses  insulae  as  synonymous  with 
tabernae.     Ann.  vi.  45.,  xv.  38.     See  De  la  Malle,  Econ.  Pol.  i.  364. 

2  Thus  a  house  of  four  stories  is  indicated  in  the  account  of  one  of  Livy's 
portents,  xxi.  65. :  "  foro  boario  bovem  in  tertiam  contignationem  sua  sponte 
escendisse  atque  inde  tumultu  habitatorum  territum  sese  dejecisse." 


394  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

courts,  and  public  places.  Setting  one  of  these  conditions, 
therefore,  against  the  other,  it  may  seem  not  unreasonable  to 
form  an  approximate  estimate  of  the  population  of  Rome 
from  the  numbers  domiciled  on  an  equal  area  in  some  modern 
capital. — 

I.  According  to  an  ancient  definition,  the  space  within  the 

walls  was  specifically  denominated  the  Urbs,  or  city,  while  the 

term  Rome  applied  to  the  whole  unbroken  extent 

Data  for  calcu-  . 

latins  the  of  buildings  which  reached  to  the  extremity  of  the 
Rome.  suburbs.1  The  Roman  urbs,  then,  was  included  at 

area  of  the  this  period  within  the  walls  or  lines  of  Servius  ; 
and  this  area  had  been  divided  by  Augustus,  for 
administrative  purposes,  into  eleven  regions,  to  which  he  had 
added  three  others  outside  the  walls,  to  embrace,  we  may 
suppose,  the  most  frequented  quarters  of  the  suburbs.2  The 
area  of  the  eleven  urban  regions  has  been  found  by  measure- 
ment on  an  accurate  map  to  equal  about  one  fifth  of  that  of 
the  modern  city  of  Paris  within  the  barrier.8  The  population 
therefore  of  the  urbs,  if  calculated  on  the  basis  of  that  of 

1  Paulus  in  Digest.  1.  16.  2. :  "Urbis  appellatio  muris,  Romas  autem  conti- 
nentibus  asdificiis  finitur,  quod  latius  patet." 

"  These  three  were  (Reg.  i.)  Porta  Capena;  (vii.)  Via  Lata;  (ix.)  Circus 
Flaminius.  It  may  be  conjectured  that  these  were  included  within  the  pomoe- 
rium  as  extended  by  Augustus  in  the  year  746  (Dion,  Iv.  6.).  See  Becker, 
R<xm.  Alter,  ii.  105. 

'  For  this  important  statement  I  cite  the  words  of  Bureau  de  la  Malle 
(i.  347.) :  "  La  superficie  de  Paris  (i.  e.  within  the  barriere  de  Toctroi)  est, 
d'apres  les  mesures  exactes,  de  3439  hect.  68  ar.  16c. ;  celle  de  Rome, 
638  hect.  72  ar.  34c.  J'ai  calcule  la  superficie  d'apres  le  grand  plan  de  Nolli, 
dont  1'exactltude  est  reconnue.  Mon  savant  confrere  M.  Jomard  a  eu  1'extreme 
oblig6ance  de  revoir  mes  calculs ;  je  les  ai  fait  verifier  de  nouveau  par  un 
habile  mathematicien.  On  s'est  servi  du  perimetre  determine  par  d'Anville 
pour  la  premiere  enceinte  de  Rome,  et  verifie  de  nouveau  sur  les  lieux  par 
M.  Nibby  et  par  Brocchi."  He  adds  in  a  note  that  his  calculations  of  the  area 
of  the  city  were  again  verified  by  Tournon,  the  learned  prefect  of  Napoleon's 
department  of  Rome.  De  la  Malle's  calculations  were  made  about  1824,  and 
his  statement  of  the  population  of  Paris  (714,000)  refers  to  the  year  1817. 
Econ.  Pol.  i.  369.  The  estimate  in  McCulloch's  Diet,  of  Geog.  for  1846  is, 
1,050,000.  There  has  been  a  great  extent  of  building  within  the  barrier 
during  that  interval. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  395 

Paris  (equal  1,050,000),  would  not  amount  to  more  than  two 
hundred  and  ten  thousand  ;  nor  is  it  easy  to  adduce  any  di- 
rect proof  that  it  actually  exceeded  this  very  moderate  num- 
ber. Bearing  in  mind  what  has  been  said  of  the  character  of 
the  buildings  which  prevailed  in  different  parts  of  this  space, 
the  number  of  temples  and  public  edifices,  the  extent  of  many 
private  residences,  the  space  devoted  to  theatres,  circuses, 
and  baths  (of  which  last  Agrippa  alone  established,  within 
and  without  the  urbs,  no  less  than  a  hundred  and  seventy), 
the  numerous  groves  arid  gardens  which  existed  even  within 
the  walls,  it  will  be  allowed  that  the  surface  actually  covered 
with  the  abodes  of  the  masses  can  hardly  have  exceeded  that 
similarly  occupied  in  Paris,  or  any  of  our  cities  at  the  pre- 
sent day.1  It  has  been  shown,  however,  how  closely  the 
houses  of  the  densest  quarters  were  packed  together ;  and  we 
may  also  believe  that  the  space  required,  man  by  man,  at  Rome 
was  much  smaller  than  accords  with  our  modern  habits. 
This  arises  from  the  outdoor  mode  of  life  practised  in  ancient 
Italy,  from  the  number  of  slaves,  who  were  huddled  together 
without  respect  to  health  or  comfort,  and  from  the  sordid 
notions  of  domestic  comfort  common  even  to  the  higher 
classes.  Thus,  while  they  allotted  ample  space  to  their  halls 
for  banquets  and  recreation,  their  sleeping  rooms  were  of  the 
smallest  possible  dimensions.  The  habitations  indeed  of 
mediaeval  Europe  were  far  more  densely  crowded  than  our 
own,  and  such  we  may  easily  believe  was  the  case  with  the 
ancient  urbs  also.  Assuming,  however,  that  from  these  con- 
siderations we  may  double  the  amount  of  its  population  as 
compared  with  modern  Paris,  we  shall  still  be  surprised,  and 
perhaps  even  startled,  to  find  that  we  cannot  raise  it  above 
four  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 

If  we  now  look  to  suburban  Rome,  and  seek  for  compen- 
sation in  that  quarter  for  the  slender  amount  of  population 
within  the  walls,  we  shall  still  be  disappointed.  Extent  of  the 
From  the  time  indeed  of  the  retreat  of  Hannibal  BUburbs- 

1  There  were,  according  to  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  iii.  9.),  not  less  than  265  open 
places  in  Rome. 


396  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

the  citizens  had  ceased  to  require  the  protection  of  military 
defences  for  their  dwellings,  and  there  was  no  impediment, 
except  in  the  reserved  space  of  the  pomcerium,  to  their  con- 
structing their  houses  outside  the  ancient  lines,  and  at  as 
great  a  distance  from  them  as  they  pleased.  Modern  Vienna, 
with  its  central  urbs,  surrounded  by  a  broad  vacant  glacis, 
and  again  by  a  second  belt  of  houses  beyond  it,  may  offer  a 
considerable  resemblance  to  the  Rome  of  Augustus.1  These 
outer  buildings  continued  no  doubt  to  increase  both  in  extent 
and  density,  through  the  two  following  centuries,  before  they 
•were  finally  inclosed  in  the  second  and  wider  circumvallation, 
which  still  marks  the  greatest  spread  of  the  imperial  metro- 
polis, embracing  an  area  rather  more  than  twice  the  size  of 
the  Servian  city,  or  than  two-fifths  of  that  of  Paris.8  But  in 
the  Augustan  period  this  outer  area  was  only  partially  occu- 
pied with  buildings.  Augustus,  when  he  added  three  Sub- 
urban regions,  the  Via  Lata,  the  Circus  Flaminius,  and  the 
Porta  Capena,  to  the  eleven  Urban,  included  in  them  a  por- 
tion only  of  this  intermural  space,  and  of  these  the  Circus  at 
least  can  have  had  very  few  private  dwellings  of  any  kind.  It 
may  be  wrong,  however,  to  assume  that  the  rest  of  the  space 
uncomprised  in  these  three  regions  was  not  also  encroached 
on  by  numerous  habitations  ;  for  so  London  runs  into  exten- 
sive and  populous  suburbs,  though  they  are  excluded  from 
the  limits  of  its  component  boroughs,  and  known  perhaps  by 
no  distinctive  appellations.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  the 
great  number  and  extent  of  private  villas  and  gardens,  such 

1  There  is  no  statement,  I  believe,  of  the  ordinary  width  of  the  pomcerium, 
which  probably  varied  very  much  in  different  quarters.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
it  was  anywhere  nearly  equal  to  that  of  the  glacis  at  Vienna ;  and  indeed,  in 
the  time  of  Augustus,  it  had  been  greatly  encroached  upon.  If,  as  Dionysius 
tells  us,  the  lines  of  Servius  could  no  longer  be  traced  throughout  in  his  days, 
neither  certainly  could  the  pomcerium. 

*  De  la  Malle  (i.  347.)  calculates  the  area  of  the  Aurelian  inclosure  at 
1396  hect.,  9  centiar. ;  it  seems  on  the  map  much  more  than  double  the  Ser- 
vian. D'Anville  (cited  by  De  la  Malle)  states  the  length  of  the  Servian  walls 
at  6187i  toises,  or  8186  Roman  passus ;  that  of  the  Aurelian,  at  12,345  toises. 
Hence  his  happy  correction  of  Pliny,  viir.  M.CC.  for  xm.  M.CC.,  Hist.  Nat.  iii.  9. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  397- 

as  those  of  Maecenas,  of  Pallas,  of  Sallust,  of  the  Lamise  and 
Laterani,  of  Csesar,  and  many  others  of  historical  celebrity, 
which  occupied  large  sites  between  the  Servian  and  Aurelian 
walls,  though  some  of  them  eventually  gave  way  to  the 
extension  of  streets  and  lanes,  clearly  indicate  that  at  an 
earlier  period  that  area  was  far  from  filled  with  ordinary 
dwellings.  Nor,  again,  is  it  possible  to  give  a  high  estimate 
to  the  more  distant  suburbs  of  Rome.  Up  to  the  gates  of 
the  city  the  Campagna  yields  few  vestiges  of  ancient  habita- 
tion, except  here  and  there  the  foundations  of  isolated  villas  ; 
and  the  roads,  as  we  have  seen,  were  lined,  not  with  rows 
of  tradesmen's  lodgings,  but  with  a  succession  of  sepulchral 
monuments,  which  the  feelings  of  the  Romans  would  have 
shrunk  from  desecrating  by  proximity  to  the  abodes  of  life.1 
It  seems  unreasonable,  then,  to  estimate  the  extramural  popu- 
lation at  more  than  one  half  of  that  within  the  walls,  which 
will  raise  the  sum.  total  to  six  hundred  and  thirty,  or,  mak- 
ing a  liberal  allowance  for  soldiers  and  public  slaves,  who 
occupied  the  baths  and  temples,  about  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand.2 

IE.  But  any  estimate  formed  on  such  grounds  as  these 
only  must  at  best  be  very  uncertain,  and  it  will  be  well  to 
inquire  whether  the  arguments  which  may  be 

J  2.  The  recorded 

drawn  from  other  sources  serve  to  confirm  or  to  number  of 
invalidate  it.    There  exists  an  ancient  statistical 


1  It  is  difficult  to  resist  the  strong  expressions  of  Pliny,  Dionysius,  and 
others  :  but  we  must  shut  our  ears  to  their  reckless  exaggerations ;  such  as, 
Plin.  iii.  5. :  "  Exspatiantia  tecta  multas  addidere  urbes."     Dion.  Hal.  iv.  13. : 
OVTW  ffwiuftavrat  ry  &ffrei  i]  X^Pai  Ka^  *'s  brfipov  tK/jii]Kvvo/j.ft>i)s  ir6\f(i>s  \nt6- 
\rjfyiv  rois  6fta/jifvois  irope'x«Tat ;  and  the  passage  of  Aristides,  before  referred 
to,  Encom.  Rom.  vol.  i.  p.  324. :    (1  rts  ainty  €0eA.^<rete  Ko.8a.p5is  avairrv^at^ 
leal  rets  vvv  pfTftlipovs  ir<J\€JS  M  •/?}$  fpf'tffas  Oflvcu  &\\rjv  trap'  fiXArjy,  S<rov  vvv 

'lra\las  8id\fitr6v  iffnv  avair\rip<a6rjvai,  rovro  truv  &v  not  8o/cef,  ical  ytveaOai 
v6\is  avvex^is  pia  M  rbv  'l6viov  Telvovffa. 

2  De  la  Malle  fixes  the  population  of  the  Servian  urbs  at  266,684,  that  of 
the  Aurelian  at  382,695,  and  of  Rome,  including  the  suburbs  at  their  furthest 
extent,  at  602,000.     To  these  he  adds  30,000  for  strangers,  and  an  equal  num- 
ber for  soldiers,  making  a  total  of  562,000.    i.  403. 


398  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

account  of  Rome,  in  which,  among  other  specific  numerical 
notices,  the  number  of  the  domus  and  insulse  respectively  is 
given  for  each  of  the  fourteen  regions.1  The  date  of  this 
little  work  cannot  perhaps  be  fixed  very  nearly,  but  the  sub- 
stance of  the  information  it  conveys  may  be  referred  to  the 
third  century  of  our  era,  after  the  building  of  the  Aurelian 
walls,  and  at  the  period  probably  of  the  greatest  extension 
of  the  city.  We  must  bear  in  mind,  therefore,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  the  density  of  habitation  in  the  urbs  was  un- 
questionably reduced  after  the  time  of  Augustus ;  and  on  the 
other,  that  the  whole  enlarged  area  was  more  uniformly  occu- 
pied with  dwellings.  If  these  circumstances  may  be  supposed 
nearly  to  balance  one  another,  we  may  be  allowed  perhaps 
to  assume  that  the  numbers  given  in  the  Nbtitia  do  not  far 
exceed  the  actual  amount  at  the  earlier  period, — namely,  46,- 
602  insulae  and  1,790  domus.  The  numbers,  however,  of 
individuals  accommodated  in  each  domus  and  insula  respec- 
tively must  still  be  a  matter  of  mere  conjecture,  nor  can  we 
find  any  close  analogy  to  guide  us.  The  average  ratio  of 
dwellers  to  houses  in  London  or  Liverpool  is  said  to  be  about 
five  to  one  ;  in  Paris  and  Vienna  it  is  much  greater ;  and  we 
may,  perhaps,  fairly  double  it  for  the  insulse  of  Rome,  al- 
though these  were  in  many  cases,  as  I  have  said,  merely  sin- 
gle chambers.  The  capacity  of  the  domus  must  have  been 
still  more  varied,  and  I  confess  that  I  am  merely  speaking  at 
random  in  assigning  to  them  an  average  of  eighty  occupants.3 
The  result,  however,  of  such  a  calculation  will  be  found  some- 
what to  exceed  six  hundred  thousand  for  the  domus  and  in- 

1  See  Preller's  comparative  edition  of  the  Curiosum  and  Notiiia. 

9  Brotier  guesses  the  average  at  eighty-four,  nor  does  De  la  Malle  see  rea- 
son to  dissent  from  him.  I  should  prefer  a  smaller  number,  because,  in  my 
view,  multitudes  of  slaves  belonging  to  great  houses  were  lodged  ha  the  insulae 
appended  to  them.  Such  would  generally  be  the  case  with  the  artificers 
whose  skill  was  turned  to  the  profit  of  their  masters.  The  chief  argument  for 
the  great  numbers  of  domestic  slaves  is  taken  from  the  well-known  case  of  the 
family  of  Pedanius,  amounting  to  400,  who  were  all  put  to  death  for  their 
master's  murder.  Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  45.  Allowance,  however,  must  be  made  for 
the  houseless,  and  the  slaves  of  the  temples  and  public  buildings. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  399 

sulae  together,  which  does  not  fall  greatly  short  of  the  esti- 
mate at  which  we  have -arrived  from  the  basis  previously 
assumed. 

III.  There  is,  however,  still  a  third  datum  to  be  consid- 
ered, which  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  lead  us  to  very  diiferent 
results,  though  possibly,  on  further  examination, 

«,  -,        f,         -,         .-,  &  .    .      ,    3.  The  number 

it  may  be  round  rather  to  confirm  our  original  of  recipients  of 
estimate.  Augustus,  as  we  learn  from  his  own  ® 
statement,  reduced  the  recipients  of  the  ordinary  dole  of  grain 
to  the  number  of  two  hundred  thousand.  When,  however, 
he  bestowed  upon  the  plebs  urbana,  the  populace  of  the  city, 
an  extraordinary  donative,  the  numbers  who  partook  of  his 
bounty  swelled  again  to  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 
The  smaller  of  these  amounts  may  represent,  perhaps,  the 
poorer  sort  of  the  citizens  ;  the  larger  the  whole  population, 
male  and  free,  below  the  senatorial  and  equestrian  ranks.1 
This  last  has  been  assumed  accordingly  by  many  inquirers 
as  the  actual  number  of  the  commons  of  Rome ;  and  this 
they  have  doubled,  at  one  stroke  of  the  pen,  to  comprehend 
the  females,  and  quadrupled,  at  another,  to  embrace  the  slaves 
also.  When  to  this  aggregate  has  been  added  a  reasonable 
proportion  for  the  noble  classes,  together  with  their  wives 
and  families,  it  has  been  thought  that  the  enormous  sum  of 
two  millions  of  souls  is  not  too  large  for  the  whole  amount 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Rome.  Now,  whatever  we  may  think 
of  the  capacity  of  the  domus  and  insulse,  it  seems  almost 
demonstrable,  from  what  has  been  said  above,  that  the  limits 
of  the  city  can  never  have  contained  such  a  mass  of  human 
beings ;  nor,  on  fair  examination  of  the  data,  are  we  driven 
in  fact  to  so  extravagant  a  conclusion.  I  have  little  doubt 
that  the  plebs  urbana,  as  they  are  called,  who  were  allowed  to 
receive  the  extraordinary  largess,  comprehended  not  merely 
the  actual  residents,  but  as  many  citizens  as  could  present  them- 
selves in  person,  or  possibly  even  by  proxy,  from  the  country 
round.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  evident  that  the  specified  number 

1  Before  the  time  of  Augustus  children  below  the  age  of  ten  years  were  ex- 
cluded, but  he  extended  the  gratuity  to  all.    Suet.  Oct.  41. 


400  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  may  far  exceed  that  of 
the  actual  free  male  residents.1  Again,  with  regard  to  the  pro- 
portion of  females  to  males,  to  suppose  it,  according  to  the 
ordinary  law  of  nature,  to  be  nearly  equal  is,  I  fear,  in  this 
case  an  unwarrantable  assumption.  The  license  of  infanticide 
was,  we  know,  a  principle  recognised  generally  in  the  ancient 
polities :  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  crime  was  regularly 
and  systematically  practised  by  the  civilized  as  well  as  the 
barbarous.8  Solon  enjoined,  and  even  the  gentle  Plutarch  ap- 
proved of  it ;  and  if  it  is  rarely  noticed  in  books,  it  is  perhaps 
only  because  it  was  too  common  to  remark  upon.  Nor  can 
there  be  any  doubt  that,  under  these  circumstances,  exposure 
would  befall  the  female  far  more  commonly  than  the  male 
infants.  There  is,  indeed,  one  passage  of  antiquity  which 
expressly  asserts  the  disproportion  of  the  female  to  the  male 
adults,  where  Dion  tells  us  that  Augustus  allowed  the  Roman 
citizens  below  the  rank  of  senators  to  intermarry  with  freed- 
women,  for  this  very  reason,  because  the  females  of  in- 
genuous birth  were  not  numerous  enough  to  mate  them.* 
With  respect  to  the  numbers  of  the  slave  population,  the  esti- 
mate I  have  referred  to  is  not  less  gratuitous.  The  most  care- 
ful and  conscientious  inquirer  into  this  intricate  subject  declares 
himself  unable  to  form  any  conjecture  as  to  its  amount,  and 
though  he  remarks  the  vast  size  of  the  families  of  the  Roman 
magnates,  and  the  multitude  also  of  public  slaves,  it  is  most 
probable  that  the  mass  of  the  commonalty  possessed  no  slaves 
at  all.*  The  nearest  analogy  to  which  we  can  refer,  perhaps, 

1  In  the  same  manner,  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  numbers  of  the  census, 
before  the  time  of  Augustus,  included  not  merely  the  residents  in  Rome,  nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  whole  number  of  citizens  within  and  without  it,  but 
precisely  as  many  as  could  present  themselves  to  the  censors  from  the  city 
and  the  country  round. 

*  The  frequency  of  this  practice  among  the  Romans,  insinuated  by  Ter- 
tullian,  Apol.  9.,  is  painfully  confirmed  by  the  cursory  remark  of  Tacitus  on 
the  abstinence  of  the  Germans :  "  Numerum  liberorum  finire  .  .  .  flagitium 
habetur."  Germ.  19. 

3  Dion,  liv.  16.,  referred  to  in  chapter  xxxiii. 

4  Wallon,  Hist,  de  VEidavage,  &c.,  pt.  ii.  chap.  3. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  401 

would  be  that  of  the  great  Oriental  cities  of  our  time,  such 
as  Cairo  or  Constantinople,  in  which  there  are  nearly  the 
same  striking  contrasts  as  in  ancient  Rome  of  luxury  and 
squalid  misery ;  the  same  extravagance  among  the  few  rich 
in  building,  amusements  and  decorations,  and  the  same  stolid 
apathy  among  the  many  poor  in  enduring  life  on  a  crust  of 
bread  and  a  sup  of  water.  Although  a  few  pashas  and  emirs 
may  dazzle  the  eyes  of  the  Frank  with  the  ostentatious  dis- 
play of  hundreds  of  male  and  female  slaves,  an  immense  pro- 
portion of  their  countrymen  are  entirely  destitute  of  them ; 
and  the  total  number  of  this  class,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  forms 
an  inconsiderable  element  in  the  whole  population.1 

While,  therefore,  there  are  some  apparent  data  for  the 
opinion,  not  uncommonly  advanced  by  moderate  and  judicious 
critics,  that  the  inhabitants  of  Rome  amounted  Exaggerations 
to  a  million  or  twelve  hundred  thousand  souls,  it  modemaSr- 
would  seem  that  the  grounds  for  this  conclusion  itie8- 
are  at  best  questionable,  while  it  is  hardly  possible  to  assign 
more  than  seven  hundred  thousand  to  the  extent  of  area  on 
which  they  were  domiciled.11    Accustomed  as  we  are  to  con- 
template much  larger  collections  of  human  beings  within  the 
limits  of  a  single  city,  and  to  connect  the  idea  of  the  capital 


1  Mr.  McCulloch,  in  his  Dictionary  of  Geography,  tells  us  that  the  esti- 
mates of  the  population  of  European  Turkey  by  M.  Boue  and  Mr.  Urquhart 
(strangely  discrepant  as  they  are)  are  those  on  which  most  reliance  may  be 
placed.    Neither  of  these  makes  any  mention  of  the  class  of  slaves. 

2  There  is  another  important  statement  upon  this  subject  hi  the  Hist.  Au- 
gust, in  Sever.  23. :  "  Moriens  septem  annorum  canonem,  ita  ut  quotidiana 
septuaginta  quinque  millia  modiorum  expendi  possent,  reliquit."    De  la  Malle 
argues  that  this  amount  of  75,000  modii  per  diem  was  the  estimated  consump- 
tion of  the  whole  population  of  Rome.    He  goes  on  to  show  that  this  quantity 
equals  1,012,000  pounds,  and  represents,  at  two  pounds  per  head,  a  number 
of  506,000  persons.     Econ.  Pol.  i.  274,  404.     But  Wallon,  hi  his  admirable 
work  (ii.  84.),  has  shown  that  this  standard  of  consumption  is  too  high  hi  the 
ratio  of  5  to  3  ;  while  Dezobry,  comparing  it  with  the  returns  of  consumption 
in  Paris,  reckons  it  too  high  in  the  ratio  of  2  to  1.     Rome,  iii.  534.     But  this 
datum,  it  will  be  observed,  refers  to  a  period  two  centuries  later  than  the  Au- 
gustan ;  nor  can  we  affirm  that  the  towns  and  villages  round  Rome  were  not 
partly  supplied  from  the  granaries  of  the  capital. 

VOL.  iv.— 26 


402  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  a  vast  and  rich  empire  with  a  much  higher  amount  of 
population,  we  may  feel  surprised  and  disappointed  at  such 
a  result  of  our  calculations,  and  the  more  so  from  the  enor- 
mous numbers  which  the  extravagance  of  certain  earlier  au- 
thorities has  ascribed  to  imperial  Rome.1  Little  stress,  how- 
ever, can  be  placed  upon  the  vague  generalities  of  the  native 
writers,  who  indulged  in  the  grossest  hyperboles  in  represent- 
ing the  vastness,  as  they  supposed  it,  of  the  Roman  popula- 
tion :  they  were  not  accustomed  to  weigh  and  compare  statis- 
tical data ;  and  though  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  the 
amount  of  the  inhabitants  of  every  city  was  registered  and 
made  known  to  the  government,  it  may  be  admitted  that 
there  was  no  general  curiosity  on  the  subject,  and  no  concep- 
tion of  the  moral  and  social  purposes  to  which  such  know- 
ledge might  be  applied.  Even  on  the  lowest  computation 
which  has  been  made,  it  is  plain  that  the  density  of  habita- 
tion in  Rome  must  have  far  exceeded  all  modern  experience ; 
and  when  we  remember  how  much  the  Romans  lived  out  of 
doors,  how  gregarious  were  their  habits,  how  universal  their 
custom  of  frequenting  the  baths,  visiting  the  theatre,  and 
attending  the  games  of  the  circus,  we  may  well  believe  that 
the  movement  and  aggregation  of  the  people  at  certain  spots 
were  far  greater  than  what  we  ordinarily  witness  in  our  own 
cities.  We  should  be  led  to  expect  that  the  great  places  of 
public  resort,  such  as  those  just  mentioned,  would  be  ex- 
pressly calculated  to  accommodate  the  whole  mass  of  the  free 
male  population ;  but  the  theatres  which  existed  in  the  time 
of  Augustus  could  not,  at  the  highest  statement,  contain  above 
ninety  thousand,  and  the  Circus  Maximus,  the  general  place 
of  assemblage  for  all  citizens  within  reach  of  Rome,  on  the 

1  Lipsius  computed  the  population  of  Rome  at  4,000,000 ;  Mengotti,  as  late 
as  1781,  at  the  same.  Brotier  and  Gibbon  have  reduced  it  to  1,200,000,  and 
this  is  the  number  assigned  to  it  by  Jacob :  On  the  Precious  Metah.  That 
Chateaubriand  should  raise  it  to  3,000,000  might,  perhaps,  be  expected ;  but  I 
am  surprised  at  the  sum  of  2,000,000  assigned  to  it,  on  very  futile  grounds,  in 
the  elaborate  description  of  Rome  by  M.  Bunsen  and  his  learned  associates. 
See  Rom.,  i.  185.  Hoeck,  on  more  critical,  but  still,  as  I  maintain,  on  quite 
erroneous  principles,  would  raise  it  to  2,265,000.  Jicem.  Reich,  i.  2.  390. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  403 

greatest  national  solemnities,  afforded  seats  at  this  period  to 
not  more  than  an  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.1 

N"or  indeed  was  Rome  calculated,  from  the  position  it 
held  among  the  cities  of  the  empire,  to  attain  any  extraordi- 
nary population.  It  was  neither  a  commercial  T 
nor  a  manufacturing  city.  It  was  not  the  empo-  R 
rium  of  a  great  transit  trade,  like  Alexandria,  farge\£p^I?ry 
nor  the  centre  of  exchange  among  a  host  of  opu-  tion- 
lent  neighbours,  like  Antioch.  It  was  not  surrounded  by  the 
teeming  hives  of  life  which  encircled  Babylon  or  Seleucia, 
Nor  was  it  increased  by  the  ever-accumulating  wealth  of  all 
classes  of  society,  like  modern  London,  or  by  the  constant 
tightening  of  the  bands  of  centralization,  by  which  the  life- 
blood  of  the  provinces  is  flooded  back  upon  Paris.  It  was 
not  the  natural  focus  of  attraction  for  the  indolent  and  luxu- 
rious ;  but  every  one  who  had  the  means  escaped  from  it  as 
often  and  as  much  as  he  could,  and  exchanged  its  ungenial 
climate  for  the  cool  breezes  of  the  mountains  or  the  coast, 
and  the  voluptuous  recreations  of  a  Campanian  watering- 
place.  The  country  around  it  was  almost  abandoned,  in  the 

1  The  theatre  of  Pompeius  held,  as  Pliny  assures  us  (H.  N.  xxxvi.  15.), 
40,000  ;  but  according  to  the  Curiosum  only  1*7,580  ;  that  of  Balbus  11,500, 
according  to  this  last  authority,  but  the  Notitia  gives  the  number  of  30,000. 
The  theatre  of  Marcellus  held,  according  to  the  Curiosum  again,  20,000.  To 
the  Circus  Maximus,  Dionysius  assigns  (Ant.  Rom.  iii.  68.)  150,000  places  : 
Pliny  gives  260,000,  and  the  last  spurious  edition  of  the  Curiosum,  which  goes 
by  the  name  of  Victor,  385,000.  The  accommodation  of  the  circus  was  prob- 
ably increased  from  tune  to  time  by  the  addition  of  wooden  galleries,  as  we 
know  was  the  case  with  the  Colosseum.  We  need  not  trouble  ourselves  with 
the  statement  of  the  so-called  Publius  Victor.  In  the  circus  the  citizens  were 
originally  seated  according  to  their  classes ;  the  chief  magistrate  presided,  the 
senators  and  knights  attended  in  their  places,  and  every  order  was  arrayed  in 
its  proper  garb.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  civil  camp  of  the  Roman  people.  When 
Juvenal  says,  "  Totam  hodie  Romam  circus  capit,"  his  hyperbole  is  only  the 
tradition  of  an  ancient  reality.  Tacitus  (Ann.  xiii.  24.)  expresses  nearly  the 
same  idea :  "  Intraverunt  Pompeii  theatrum  quo  magnitudinem  populi  vise- 
rent."  Comp.  Senec.  de  Ira.  ii.  7. :  "  Ulum  circum  in  quo  maximam  sui  par- 
tern  populus  ostendit."  Yet  from  the  time  of  the  later  republic  women  were 
not  excluded  from  the  theatres  or  circus.  Plut.  Sull.  35. ;  Ovid,  Art.  Amand. 
L  139. ;  Calpurn.  Ed.  vii.  26. 


404  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

imperial  period,  to  the  maintenance  of  cattle,  and  the  drain 
of  human  life  caused  by  its  crowded  state  and  baneful  atmos- 
phere was  only  replenished  by  immigration  from  distant 
shores.  I  will  not  compare  it  with  Madrid,  a  mere  royal 
residence,  nor  with  the  marble  exhalation  of  St.  Petersburg ; 
but  of  modern  capitals  Vienna  may  perhaps  be  considered 
most  nearly  to  resemble  it.  Its  great  social  characteristic 
was  the  entire  absence  of  a  middle  class,  the  bone  and  sinew 
of  cities  as  well  as  of  empires ;  and  its  population  mainly 
consisted  of  the  two  orders  of  wealthy  nobles  on  the  one 
hand,  whose  means  were  in  process  of  trituration  under  the 
pressure  of  the  imperial  imposts,  and  the  poor  citizens  on  the 
other,  who  clung  to  the  forum  and  the  circus  for  the  sake  of 
their  amusements  and  largesses. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  4.95 


CHAPTEE    XLI. 

LIFE     IN     ROME. — THRONGING     OF     THE     STREETS. — PLACES     OF    RECREATION. 

THEATRES,     CIRCUS,     AND     AMPHITHEATRES. EXHIBITIONS     OF    WILD    BEASTS 

AND     GLADIATORS. BATHS. THE     DAY     OF     A     ROMAN     NOBLE:    THE   FORUM, 

THE   CAMPUS,    THE    BATH,    AND   THE    SUPPER. CUSTOM    OF    RECITATION. THE 

SCHOOLS  OF  THE  RHETORICIANS. — AUTHORS:  LIVY,  YIRGIL,  HORACE,  PRO- 
PERTIUS,  TIBULLUS,  OTID,  EACH  REFLECTING  IN  HIS  OWN  WAY  THE  SENTI- 
MENTS OF  THE  AUGUSTAN  AGE. 

WE  will  now  proceed  to  people  with  human  figures  the 
expanse  of  brick  and  marble  which  has  been  presented 
to  our  view,  and  realize,  as  we  may,  the  actual 

, .      ,         ,       Thronging  of 

movement  of  life  in  the  great  metropolis,  heart-  the  streets  of 

.  i  .  i  •  i         MI  Rome. 

ening  to  the  surging  murmurs  which  still  seem 
to  resound  across  the  abyss  of  eighteen  centuries.1  Rome, 
at  the  tune  of  which  we  are  speaking,  was  in  the  crisis  of 
that  transitional  state  which  most  great  capitals  have  expe- 
rienced, when  a  rapid  increase  in  their  population  and  the 
transactions  of  daily  life  has  begun  to  outstrip  the  extension 
of  their  means  of  accommodation.  The  increase  of  numbers 
must  necessarily  multiply  the  operations  of  industry,  which 
cross  and  recross  each  other  in  the  streets ;  and  though 
neither  the  commerce  nor  manufactures  of  Rome  were  con- 
ducted on  the  scale  to  which  our  ideas  are  accustomed,  the 
retail  traffic  which  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  the  ordi- 
nary affairs  of  business  and  pleasure,  must  have  caused  an 
ever-increasing  stir  and  circulation  among  the  multitude  of 

1  Stat  Sylv.  i.  1.  65. :  "  Magnse  vaga  murmura  Roma." 


406  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

human  beings  collected  within  its  walls.  The  uninterrupted 
progress  of  building  operations,  and  the  extension  of  the 
suburbs  simultaneously  with  the  restoration  of  the  city,  must 
have  kept  every  avenue  constantly  thronged  with  waggons 
and  vehicles  of  all  sorts,  engaged  in  the  transport  of  cum- 
brous materials :  the  crush  of  these  heavy-laden  machines, 
and  the  portentous  swinging  of  the  long  beams  they  carried, 
round  the  corners  of  the  narrow  streets,  are  mentioned  among 
the  worst  nuisances  and  even  terrors  of  the  citizen's  daily 
walk.1  Neither  of  the  rival  institutions  of  the  shop  and  the 
bazaar  had  been  developed  to  any  great  extent  in  ancient 
Trades  exer-  Rome.  Numerous  trades  were  exercised  there 
streets.  by  itinerant  vendors.  The  street  cries,  which 

have  almost  ceased  within  our  own  memory  in  London,  were 
rife  in  the  city  of  the  Caesars.  The  incessant  din  of  these 
discordant  sounds  is  complained  of  as  making  life  intolerable 
to  the  poor  gentleman  who  is  compelled  to  reside  in  the  midst 
of  them.*  The  streets  were  not  contrived,  nor  was  it  possible 
generally  to  adapt  them,  for  the  passage  of  the  well-attended 
litters  and  cumbrous  carriages  of  the  wealthy,  which  began 
to  traverse  them  with  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  our  own 
aristocratic  vehicles  of  a  century  since  ;  *  while  the  police  of 
the  city  seems  never  to  have  contemplated  the  removal  of  the 
most  obvious  causes  of  crowd  and  obstruction,  in  the  display 
of  gymnastic  and  gladiatorial  feats,  of  conjurors'  tricks  and 
the  buffoonery  of  the  lowest  stage-players,  amidst  the  most 

frequented  thoroughfares.4  The  noble  seldom 
loungers  and  crossed  his  threshold  without  a  numerous  train 

of  clients  and  retainers ;  the  lower  people  col- 
lected at  the  corners  of  the  streets  to  hear  the  gossip  of  the 
day,  and  discuss  the  merits  of  racers  and  dancers  ;  the  slaves 

1  Juvenal,  ill  236,  255.  In  the  second  century  it  became  necessary  to  for- 
bid loaded  waggons  to  traverse  the  city.  "  Orbicula  cum  ingentibus  sarcinis 
urbem  ingredi  prohibuit."  Spartian.  Hadrian.  22. 

1  Martial,  i.  42.,  x.  3.,  xii.  57. 

*  The  Appian  Way  was  the  fashionable  drive  of  the  Roman  nobility.  Hor. 
Epod.  4.  14. ;  Epist.  L  6.  26. 

4  Suet  Oct.  74. :  "  Triviales  ex  Circo  ludiL" 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  407 

hovered  over  the  steam  of  the  open  cook-shops,  or  loitered  on 
their  errands,  to  gaze  on  the  rude  drawings  or  pore  over  the 
placards  on  the  walls.  The  last  century  had  filled  the  im- 
perial capital  with  multitudes  of  foreigners,  attracted  by 
curiosity  as  much  as  by  business  to  the  renowned  emporium 
of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  who  added  to  the  host  of  idlers 
and  gazers  in  the  streets  of  Rome  ;  men  of  strange  costumes 
and  figures,  and,  when  they  spoke,  of  speech  still  stranger, 
who,  while  they  gazed  around  them  with  awe  and  admira- 
tion, became  themselves  objects  of  interest  to  a  crowd  of 
lounging  citizens.  The  marked  though  casual  manner  in 
which  the  throng  of  the  streets  is  noticed  by  the  Roman 
writers,  shows,  in  the  strongest  way,  how  ordinary  a  feature 
it  was  of  life  in  the  city.1 

The  streets,  or  rather  the  narrow  and  winding  alleys,  of 
Rome  were  miserably  inadequate  to  the  circulation  of  the 
people  who  thus  encumbered  them ;  for  the  vici  interruptions 
were  no  better  than  lanes  or  alleys,  and  there  totrafflc- 
were  only  two  vise,  or  paved  ways,  fit  for  the  transport  of 
heavy  carriages,  the  Sacra  and  the  Nova,  in  the  PaucUy  of 
central  parts  of  the  city.    The  three  interior  hills,  thoroughfares. 
the  Palatine,  the  Aventine,  and  the  Capitoline,  were  sore 
impediments  to  traffic ;  for  no  carriages  could  pass  over  them, 
and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  they  were  even  thoroughfares 
for  foot-passengers.     The  occurrence  of  a  fire  or  Demolition  of 
an  inundation,  or  the  casual  fall  of  a  house,  must  hoase8-  Firea- 
have  choked  the  circulation  of  the  lifeblood  of  the  city.1    The 

1  Comp.,  for  instance,  Hor.  Sat.  ii.  6.  28. : 

"  Luctandum  in  turba,  facienda  injuria  tardis ; " 

and  Cicero,  in  the  passage  so  important  for  the  topography  of  Rome  (pro  Plane. 
7.) :  "  Equidem  si  quando,  ut  fit,  jactor  in  turba,  non  ilium  accuso  qui  est  in 
summa  Sacra  Via,  cum  ego  ad  Fabium  fornicem  impeller,  sed  eum  qui  in  me 
ipsum  incurrit  et  incidit."  Such  an  illustration  would  not  occur  to  an  English 
speaker.  Comp.  Plaut.  Mercat.  i.  1.  8. :  "  Tres  simitu  res  agendas  sunt  .... 
et  currendum,  et  pugnandum,  et  autem  jurgandum  est  in  via."  Dezobry, 
Rome,  i.  218. 

*  Strabo  speaks  very  strongly  of  the  constant  fall  and  demolition  of  houses 
(v.  3.  p.  235.) :  at  ffv/jtirraxTfts  Kal  tpvpfiffeis  Kal  /jLerairptiffeis, 


408  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

first,  indeed,  and  the  last  of  these,  were  accidents  to  which 

every  place  of  human  resort  is  liable  ;  but  the  inundations  of 

Rome  were  a  marked  and  peculiar  feature  of  her 

Inundations.  _„  , 

ancient  existence.  The  central  quarters  of  the 
city  were  founded  in  a  morass  little  raised  above  the  ordinary 
level  of  the  Tiber,  a  river  peculiarly  subject  to  rapid  and  vio- 
lent risings.  The  Romans  might  complain  that,  from  the 
configuration  of  the  spot,  the  masses  of  water  brought  down 
from  above  were  flung  from  the  right  bank,  where  the  high 
grounds  descended  directly  into  the  stream,  and  driven  with 
increased  violence  against  the  left,  just  at  the  point  where 
nature  had  left  an  opening  into  the  heart  of  the  city.1  It 
might  have  been  easy  to  maintain  a  mound  or  levee  on  this 
bank,  and  curb  the  overflows  at  least  of  ordinary  years ;  but 
the  seven  hills  were  themselves  great  attractors  of  rain, 
which  they  cast  off  from  their  sides  into  the  pool  of  the 
Forum  and  the  trough  of  the  Velabrum,  and  this  discharge 
it  required  a  stupendous  under  drainage  to  convey  safely 
into  the  river."  When  the  Tiber  was  high,  the  torrents  of 
the  sewers,  or  cloacae,  were  of  course  ponded  back,  and  no 
ingenuity  could  prevent  the  flooding  of  the  lower  levels  of  the 
city  to  a  depth  of  several  feet.  Nor  was  it  in  the  Forum 
and  Velabrum  only  that  these  disastrous  effects  were  pro- 
duced :  the  little  Aqua  Crabra,  which  descended  into  the 
city  from  the  Porta  Capena,  and  was  carried  beneath  the 
arena  of  the  circus  into  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  often  overspread 

aurai  ovcrai  •  Kal  yiip  al  fifrairpdff(is  (Kovffiot  nvts  <rvfi.irr<afffis  fieri,  Karafla- 
\6vr<av  Kal  avoiKoSonovyTuv  irpbs  TO,S  firiGvfjLlas  trepa  il-  irfpatv. 

1  Such  is  the  interpretation  sometimes  given  to  the  well-known  lines  of 
Horace :  "  Vidimus  flavum  Tiberim  retortis 

Litore  Etrusco  violenter  undis." 

It  may  be  more  correct  to  understand  by  the  litus  Etruscum,  the  coast  of  the 
Mediterranean ;  but  I  remember  the  happy  boldness  of  the  Ovidian,  "  pro  ripis 
litora  poscunt,"  and  am  willing  to  adopt  it  here. 

2  Strabo  describes  the  drainage  of  the  city,  v.  3.  p.  235. :  rovovrov  5'  fo-rl 
rb  flffaydryifiov  vSwp  Sitk  TWV  vSpaywyfiuv,  wffre  iroranovs  Sia,  T^S  vtteus  Kal 
ruv  {nrov6(i.ii>v  freiv.      Here  occurs  his  remarkable  statement  that  a  waggon 
loaded  with  hay  could  enter  the  great  Cloaca. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  409 

the  low  grounds  at  the  foot  of  the  Caelian  Hill,  and  the  grotto 
of  Egeria  was  sometimes,  we  may  believe,  thus  converted  into 
an  abode  more  worthy  of  the  water  nymph  to  whom  it  was 
dedicated.1 

The  efforts  made  to  expand  the  sides  of  the  Forum,  and 
give  more  play  to  the  lungs  of  the  great  animated  machine, 
were  very  feeble  and  imperfect,  till  Julius  Caesar,  and  after 
him  Augustus,  removed  large  masses  of  habitations  in  this 
quarter,  and  threw  open  to  traffic  and  movement  the  space 
thus  seasonably  acquired.    But  if  the  Roman  people  was  ill 
accommodated  in  its  streets,  it  might  derive  compensation  in 
the  vast  constructions  erected  for  its  amusement, 
the  ample  walks  and  gardens  devoted  to  its  re-  atipn  for  the 
creation,  and  the  area  which  was  sedulously  pre-  Parkland  gar- 
served  for  its  exercise  in  the  Campus  Martius, 
and  the  circuses  of  Romulus  and  Flaminius.    The  theatre  of 
Pompeius,  the  first  built  of  stone  for  permanent 
use,  was  rivalled  by  that  of  Balbus,  and  Augus- 
tus dedicated  a  third  to  the  pleasures  of  the  citizens  under  the 
title  of  the  theatre  of  Marcellus.4     From  the  enormous  size 
of  these  celebrated  edifices,  it  is  clear  that  the  idea  of  reserv- 
ing them  for  dramatic  performances  hardly  entered  into  the 
views  of  their  builders.    The  Roman  theatres  were  an  insti- 
tution very  different  from  ours,  where  a  select  audience  pay  the 
price  of  admission  to  a  private  spectacle  on  however  large  a 
scale :  they  were  the  houses  of  the  Roman  people,  to  which 
every  citizen  claimed  the  right  of  entrance ;  for  they  were 
given  him  for  his  own  by  their  munificent  founders,  and  the 

1  Cicero  describes  the  effect  of  a  flood  in  this  quarter  in  a  passage  of  some 
topographical  importance.     "  Romae  et  maxime  Appia  ad  Martis  mira  prolu- 
vies ;  Crassipedia  ambulatio  ablata ;  horti,  tabernae  plurimae :  magna  vis  aquae 
usque  ad  Piscinam  publicam."    Ad.  Qu.  Fr.  iii.  7. 

2  Ovid,  Trist.  iii.  12. :  "  Cumque  tribus  resonant  terna  theatra  foris."   The 
three  forums  are  those  of  Julius  and  Augustus,  with  the  Boarium.    It  is  not 
quite  clear  what  was  the  construction  or  what  the  fate  of  the  theatre  of  Scau- 
rus.    It  was  adorned  with  costly  pillars  of  marble,  but  the  walls  and  seats  may 
have  been  chiefly  of  wood ;  and  if  it  was  not  pulled  down,  it  must  have  been 
destroyed  by  fire  before  the  erection  of  the  Pompeian  a  few  years  later. 


410  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

performances  which  took  place  hi  them  were  provided  gra- 
tuitously by  the  magistrates.  The  first  object,  therefore,  was 
to  seat  the  greatest  number  of  the  people  possible  ;  and  when 
that  was  accomplished,  the  question  followed  of  how  they 
should  be  safely  and  conveniently  entertained.  An  assem- 
blage of  30,000  spectators,  gathering  excitement  from  the 
consciousness  of  their  own  multitude,  could  not  sit  tamely 
under  the  blaze  of  an  Italian  sun,  tempered  only  by  an  awn- 
ing, in  the  steam  and  dust  of  their  own  creating,  which 
streams  of  perfumed  waters  were  required  to  allay, 1  to  hear 
the  formal  dialogue  of  the  ancient  tragedy  declaimed  by 
human  puppets  from  brass-lipped  masques,  staggering  on  the 
stilted  cothurnus.2  Whatever  might  be  the  case  with  the 
Greeks,  it  was  impossible,  at  least  for  the  plainer  Romans, 
so  to  abstract  their  imaginations  from  the  ungraceful  realities 
thus  placed  before  them,  as  to  behold  in  them  a  symbolic 
adumbration  of  the  heroic  and  the  divine.  For  the  charms, 
Theatrical  ex-  however,  both  of  music  and  dancing,  which  are 
hibitions.  aiso  considered  pleasures  of  the  imagination,  they 
appear  to  have  had  a  genuine,  though  perhaps  a  rude,  taste. 
Their  dramatic  representations,  accordingly,  were  mostly  con- 
ducted in  pantomime ;  this  form  at-  least  of  the  drama  was 
that  which  most  flourished  among  them,  and  produced  men 
of  genius,  inventors  and  creators  in  their  own  line.  Some  of 
the  most  famous  of  the  mimic  actors  were  them- 

Pantomime.  .  . 

selves  Komans  ;  but  the  ancient  prejudice  against 

1  These  were  recent  inventions  :  in  simpler  times,  according  to  Propertius 
(iv.  I.  15.): 

"  Non  sinuosa  vago  pendebant  vela  theatre ; 

Pulpita  solennes  non  oluere  crocos." 

In  the  amphitheatres  which  were  too  spacious  for  complete  awnings,  the  spec- 
tators were  refreshed  by  the  play  of  jets  d'eau,  which  rose  to  the  full  height 
of  the  building.  Senec.  Nat.  Qucest.  ii.  9. 

2  "  Like  mice  roaring,"  to  apply  an  expression  of  Mrs.  F.  Kemble's.    I  can- 
not reconcile  the  use  of  the  mask  and  buskin  with  the  keen  appreciation  of  the 
graceful  in  form  ascribed  so  liberally  to  the  Greeks ;  nor  can  I  understand 
how  the  audiences  of  Aristophanes  could  be  the  same  people  who  gravely  wit- 
nessed Agamemnon's  shuffle  across  the  stage : — xatia-i  TifleJs  Tbv  abv  ir6$', 
'l\lov 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

the  exercise  of  histrionic  art  by  citizens  was  never  perhaps 
wholly  overcome.  Accordingly  Greek  names  figure  more 
conspicuously  than  Roman  in  the  roll  of  actors  on  the  Roman 
stage ;  and  two  of  these,  Bathyllus  and  Pylades,  divided 
between  them,  under  the  mild  autocracy  of  Augustus,  the 
dearest  sympathies  and  favours  of  the  masters  of  the  world. 
The  rivalry  of  these  two  competitors  for  public  applause, 
or  rather  of  their  admirers  and  adherents,  broke  out  into 
tumultuous  disorders,  which  engaged  at  last  the  interference 
of  the  emperor  himself.  It  is  better  for  your  government,  said 
one  of  them  to  him,  when  required  to  desist  from  a  profes- 
sional emulation  which  imperilled  the  tranquillity  of  the  city 
— it  is  better  that  the  citizens  should  quarrel  about  a  Pylades 
and  a  Bathyllus  than  about  a  Pompeius  and  a  Ccesar.1 

But  whatever  claims  pantomime  might  have  as  a  legiti- 
mate child  of  the  drama,  the  Roman  stage  was  invaded  by 
another  class  of  exhibitions,  for  which  no  such 
pretensions  could  be  advanced.  The  grand  pro- 
portions of  the  theatre  invited  more  display  of  scenic  effects 
than  could  be  supplied  by  the  chaste  simplicity  of  the  Greek 
chorus,  in  which  the  priests  or  virgins,  whatever  their  num- 
ber, presented  only  so  many  repetitions  of  a  single  type.  The 
finer  sentiment  of  the  upper  classes  was  overpowered  by  the 
vulgar  multitude,  who  demanded  with  noisy  violence  the 
gratification  of  their  coarse  and  rude  tastes.*  Processions 
swept  before  their  eyes  of  horses  and  chariots,  of  wild  and 
unfamiliar  animals ;  the  long  show  of  a  triumph  wound  its 
way  across  the  stage ;  the  spoils  of  captured  cities,  and  the 
figures  of  the  cities  themselves  were  represented  in  painting 
or  sculpture  ;  the  boards  were  occupied  in  every  interval  of 
more  serious  entertainment  by  crowds  of  rope-dancers,  con- 
jurors, boxers,  clowns,  and  posture-makers,  men  who  walked 

1  Dion,  liv.  1Y. ;  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  7. 
a  Hor.  Epxt.  ii.  1.  184. : 

"  Indocti  stolidique,  et  depugnare  parati 

Si  discordet  eques,  media  inter  carmina  poscunt 

Aut  ursum  aut  pugiles,"  &c. 


412  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

on  their  hands,  or  stood  on  their  heads,  or  let  themselves  be 
whirled  aloft  by  machinery,  or  suspended  upon  wires,  or 
who  danced  on  stilts,  or  exhibited  feats  of  skill  with  cups 
and  balls.1  But  these  degenerate  spectacles  were  not  the 
lowest  degradation  to  which  the  theatres  were  subjected. 
They  were  polluted  with  the  grossest  indecencies ;  and  the 
luxury  of  the  stage,  as  the  Romans  delicately  phrased  it,  drew 
down  the  loudest  indignation  of  the  reformers  of  a  later  age.* 
Hitherto  at  least  legislators  and  moralists  had  been  content 
with  branding  with  civil  infamy  the  instruments  of  the  people's 
licentious  pleasures ;  but  the  pretext  even  for  this  was  rather 
the  supposed  baseness  of  exhibiting  oneself  for  money,  than 
the  iniquity  of  the  performances  themselves.  The  legitimate 
drama,  which  was  still  an  exercise  of  skill  among  the  Romans, 
was  relegated,  perhaps,  to  the  smaller  theatres  of  wood, 
which  were  erected  year  by  year  for  temporary  use.  There 
were  also  certain  private  theatres,  in  which  knights  and  sena- 
tors could  exercise  their  genius  for  singing  and  acting  with- 
out incurring  the  stigma  of  public  representation. 

The  appetite  for  grandeur  and  magnificence,  developed 
so  rapidly  among  the  Romans  by  the  pride  of  opulence  and 
TheampM-  power,  was  stimulated  by  the  rivalry  of  the 
theatres.  great  nobles.  The  bold  and  ingenious  tribune 

1  The  learned  Bolenger  (de  Theatre,  L  34,  foil,  in  Grsev.  Thes.)  has  given  a 
list  of  the  kinds  of  performers  who  thus  encroached  upon  the  domain  of  Mel- 
pomene and  Thalia :  "  Ingens  utique  hujusmodi  hominum  sylva  fuit,  quorum 
alii  miracula  patrarent,  Graeci  vocant  &av/j.a.Toiroiovs,  Latini  praestigiatores, 
acetabulos,  alii  per  catadromum  decurrerent,  cemuarent,  petauristae  essent, 
petaminarii,  grallatores,  phonasci,  pantomimi,  crotochoraulae,  citharoedi,  satyri, 
lentuli,  tibicines,  parasiti,  atellani,  dictiosi,  ridiculi,  rhapsodi,  urbicarii,  psaltriae, 
sabulones,  planipedes,  muni,  mastigophori,  apinarii,  moriones,  miriones,  san- 
niones,  iambi,  salii,  musici,  poetae,  curiones,  praecones,  agonarchae  : "  all  which 
he  proceeds  severally  to  describe. 

a  This  coarseness  dated,  indeed,  from  a  period  of  high  and  honourable  feel- 
ing.    The  impurities  of  the  Floralia  offended  the  elder  Cato,  according  to  Mar- 
tial's  well-known  epigram,  i.  1.     The  same  licentiousness  continued  to  please, 
through  a  period  of  six  centuries,  down  to  the  time  of  Ausonius,  who  says, 
"  Nee  non  lascivi  Floralia  laeta  theatri, 

Quae  spectasse  volunt  qui  voluisse  negant." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  413 

Curio,  whose  talents  found  a  more  fatal  arena  in  the  contests 
of  the  civil  wars,  was  the  first  to  imagine  the  form  of  the 
double  hemicycle,  which  he  executed  with  an  immense  wood- 
en structure  and  a  mechanical  apparatus,  by  which  two  thea- 
tres, after  doing  their  legitimate  duty  to  the  drama,  could  be 
wheeled  front  to  front,  and  combined  into  a  single  amphi- 
theatre for  gladiatorial  spectacles.1  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  extraordinary  edifice  was  adapted  to  contain  many 
thousands  of  spectators ;  and  there  are  few,  perhaps,  even 
of  our  own  engineers,  who  build  tubular  bridges  and  suspend 
acres  of  iron  network  over  our  heads,  who  would  not  shrink 
from  the  problem  of  moving  the  population  of  a  great  city  on 
a  single  pair  of  pivots.2  The  amphitheatre  of  Julius  Caesar 
in  the  Campus  was  of  wood  also,  and  this,  as  well  as  its  pre- 
decessors, seems  to  have  been  taken  down  after  serving  the 
purpose  of  the  day.  It  remained  for  Statilius  Taurus,  the 
legate  of  Augustus,  to  construct  the  first  edifice  of  this  char- 
acter in  stone,  and  to  bequeath  to  future  ages  the  original 
model  of  the  magnificent  structures  which  bear  that  name, 
some  of  which  still  attest  the  grandeur  of  the  empire  in  her 
provinces  ;  but  the  most  amazing  specimen  of  which,  and  in- 
deed the  noblest  existing  monument  of  all  ancient  architec- 
ture, is  the  glorious  Colosseum  at  Rome.  Like  most  of  the 
splendid  buildings  of  this  period,  the  amphitheatre  of  Taurus 
was  erected  in  the  Campus  Martius,  the  interior  of  the  city 
not  admitting  of  the  dedication  of  so  large  a  space  to  the 
purpose  ;  though  it  was  rumoured  indeed  that  Augustus  had 
purposed  to  crown  the  series  of  his  public  works  by  an  edifice 


1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxvi.  24.  §  8. :  "  Theatra  juxta  fecit  amplissima  e  ligno, 
cardinum  singulorum  versatili  suspensa  libramento,  in  quibus  utrisque  ante- 
meridiano  ludorum  spectaculo  edito  inter  sese  aversis,  ne  invicem  obstreperent 
scenae,  repente  circumactis  ut  contra  starent,  postremo  jam  die  discedentibus 
tabulis  et  cornibus  in  se  coeuntibus,  faciebat  amphitheatrum,  et  gladiatorum 
spectacula  edebat,  ipsum  magis  auctoratum  populum  Romanum  circumferens." 

2  Plin.  1.  c. :  "  Super  omnia  erit  populi  furor,  sedere  ausa  tarn  infida  insta- 

bilique  sede ecce  populus  Romanus  universus,  velut  duobus  navigiia 

impositus,  binis  cardinibus  sustinetur." 


414  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

of  this  nature,  in  the  centre  of  his  capital.1  "While  the  amphi- 
theatre, however,  was  a  novel  invention,  the  circus,  to  which 
it  was  in  a  manner  supplementary,  was  one  of  the  most  an- 
cient institutions  of  the  city.  The  founder  himself  had  con- 
vened his  subjects  in  the  Murcian  valley,  beneath  his  cabin 
on  the  Palatine,  to  celebrate  games  of  riding,  hunting,  and 
charioteering.  The  inclosure  in  which  these  shows  were  an- 
nually exhibited  was  an  oblong,  curved  at  the  further  end, 
above  six  hundred  yards  in  length,  but  comparatively  nar- 
row. The  seats  which  ranged  round  the  two  larger  sides 
and  extremity  of  this  area  were  originally  cut  out  of  the 
rising  ground,  and  covered  with  turf:  less  rude  accommoda- 
tion was  afterwards  supplied  by  wooden  scaffoldings ;  but 
the  whole  space  was  eventually  surrounded  by  masonry, 
and  decorated  with  all  the  forms  and  members  of  Roman 
architecture. 

The  arena  was  adapted  for  chariot-racing  by  a  partition,  a 

dwarf  wall,  surmounted  with  various  emblematic  devices,  which 

ran  along  the  middle  and  terminated  at  either  end 

The  Circus. 

in  goals  or  ornamented  pillars,  round  which  the 
contending  cars  were  driven  a  stated  number  of  times.     The 
eye  of  the  spectator,  from  his  position  aloft,  was  carried  over 
this  spinal  ridge,  and  he  obtained  a  complete  view  of  the  con- 
test, which  thus  passed  and  repassed,  amidst  clouds 

Chariot  races.         „    ' 

oi  dust  and  roars  01  sympathizing  excitement,  be- 
fore his  feet.  The  Romans  had  from  the  first  an  intense  de- 
light in  these  races  ;  and  many  of  the  most  graphic  passages 
of  their  poets  describe  the  ardour  of  the  horses,  the  emulation 
of  their  drivers,  and  the  tumultuous  enthusiasm  of  the  spec- 
tators.* These  contests  maintained  their  interest  from  the 

1  Suetonius,  remarking  particularly  that  the  Colosseum,  or  amphitheatre  of 
Vespasian,  was  hi  the  centre  of  the  city,  tells  us  that  it  was  erected  there  hi 
order  to  carry  out  a  design  of  Augustus.  Ve*pas.  9. 

5  Most  of  us  have  been  struck  with  the  spectacle  of  an  audience  of  three  or 
four  thousands  hi  one  of  our  theatres  rising  simultaneously  at  the  first  sound 
of  the  national  anthem.  The  Romans  were  deeply  impressed  with  the  gran- 
deur of  such  a  movement,  on  the  very  different  scale  with  which  they  were 
familiar.  Comp.  Stat.  Theb.  vi.  448. :— 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  415 

cradle  to  the  very  grave  of  the  Roman  people.  The  circus 
of  Constantinople,  under  the  Greek  designation  of  Hippo- 
drome, was  copied  from  the  pattern  of  the  Roman ;  and 
the  factions,  which  divided  the  favour  of  the  tribes  almost 
from  the  beginning  of  the  empire,  continued  to  agitate  the 
city  of  Theodosius  and  Justinian.  The  citizens  were  never 
satiated  with  this  spectacle,  and  could  sit  without  flagging 
through  a  hundred  heats,  which  the  liberality  of  the  exhibitor 
sometimes  provided  for  them.  But  the  races  were  more  com- 
monly varied  with  contests  of  other  kinds.  All  the  varieties 
of  the  Greek  Pancratium,  such  as  boxing,  wrestling,  and 
running,  were  exhibited  in  the  circus  ;  gladiators  fought  one 
another  with  naked  swords,  sometimes  in  single  combat,  some- 
times with  opposing  bands.  The  immense  size  of  the  arena, 
unfavourable  for  the  exhibition  of  the  duel,  was  turned  to 
advantage  for  the  display  of  multitudes  of  wild  Exhibition  of 
animals,  which  were  let  loose  in  it  to  be  transfixed  wild  beasts- 
with  spears  and  arrows.  This  practice  seems  to  date  from 
the  sixth  century,  when  victorious  generals  first  returned  to 
Rome  from  the  far  regions  of  the  East,  and  ingratiated  them- 
selves with  the  populace  by  exhibiting  strange  monsters  of 
unknown  continents,  lions  and  elephants,  giraffes  and  hippopo- 
tami. As  in  other  things,  the  rivalry  of  the  nobles  soon  dis- 
played itself  in  the  number  of  these  creatures  they  produced 
for  massacre  ;  and  the  favour  of  the  citizens  appears  to  have 
followed  with  constancy  the  champion  who  treated  them  with 
the  largest  effusion  of  blood.  The  circus  was  too  spacious  for 
the  eye  to  gloat  on  the  expression  of  conflicting  passions,  and 
watch  the  last  ebbings  of  life ;  but  the  amphitheatre  brought 
the  greatest  possible  number  of  spectators  within  easy  dis- 
tance of  the  dead  and  dying,  and  fostered  the  passion  for  the 
sight  of  blood,  which  continued  for  centuries  to  vie  in  interest 
with  the  harmless  excitement  of  the  race.1 

"  Subit  astra  fragor,  coelumque  tremiscit, 

Omniaque  excusso  patuere  sedilia  vulgo." 

1  Favourable  as  the  long  extent  of  the  circus  might  have  been  for  the  ex- 
hibition of  pageants  and  processions,  the  people,  in  their  eagerness  for  specta- 


416  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

The  idea  of  the  theatre  is  representation  and  illusion,  and 
the  stage  is,  as  it  were,  magic  ground,  over  which  the  imagina- 
Giadiatoriai  ^on  mav  glance  without  restraint  and  wander  at 
combats.  ^jjj^  yrom  Thebes  to  Athens^  from  the  present  to 

the  past  or  future.  But  in  the  amphitheatre  all  is  reality.  The 
citizen,  seated  face  to  face  with  his  fellow-citizens,  could  not 
for  a  moment  forget  either  his  country  or  his  times.  The  spec- 
tacles here  presented  to  him  made  no  appeal  to  the  discursive 
faculties ;  they  brought  before  his  senses,  in  all  the  hardness 
of  actuality,  the  consummation  of  those  efforts  of  strength, 
skill,  and  dexterity  in  the  use  of  arms,  to  which  much  of  his 
own  time  and  thoughts  was  necessarily  directed.  The  exhi- 
bition of  gladiatorial  combats,  which  preceded  the  departure 
of  a  general  for  a  foreign  campaign,  was  part  of  the  soldier's 
training  (and  every  citizen  was  regarded  as  a  soldier),  from 
which  he  received  the  last  finish  of  his  education,  and  was 
taught  to  regard  wounds  and  death  as  the  natural  incidents 
of  his  calling.  These  were  probably  the  most  ancient  of  the 
military  spectacles.  The  combats  of  wild  beasts,  and  of  men 
with  beasts,  were  a  corruption  of  the  noble  science  of  war 
which  the  gladiatorial  contests  were  supposed  to  teach ;  they 
were  a  concession  to  the  prurient  appetite  for  excitement, 
engendered  by  an  indulgence  which,  however  natural  in  a 
rude  and  barbarous  age,  was  actually  hardening  and  degrad- 
ing. The  interest  these  exercises  at  first  naturally  excited 
degenerated  into  a  mere  passion  for  the  sight  of  death  ;  and 
as  the  imagination  can  never  be  wholly  inactive  in  the  face 
of  the  barest  realities,  the  Romans  learnt  to  feast  their 
thoughts  on  the  deepest  mystery  of  humanity,  and  to  pry 
with  insatiate  curiosity  into  the  secrets  of  the  last  moments 
of  existence  :  in  proportion  as  they  lost  their  faith  in  a  future 
life,  they  became  more  restlessly  inquisitive  into  the  condi- 
tions of  the  present. 

The  eagerness  with  which  the  great  mass  of  the  citizens 

cles  of  bloodshed,  witnessed  them  here  with  great  impatience.  M.  Seneca  thus 
closes  one  of  his  prefaces  :  "  Sed  jam  non  sustineo  vos  morari.  Scio  quam 
odiosa  res  sit  circensibus  pompa."  Controv.  i.  prsef. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

crowded  to  witness  these  bloody  shows,  on  every  occasion 
of  their  exhibition,  became  one  of  the  most  strik-  sentiments  of 
ing  features  of  Roman  society,  and  none  of  their  fhe^'bi 
customs  has  attracted  more  of  the  notice  of  the  BP 
ancient  writers  who  profess  to  describe  the  manners  of  their 
times.  By  them  they  are  often  represented  as  an  idle  and 
frivolous  recreation,  unworthy  of  the  great  nation  of  kings  ; 
nor  do  we  find  the  excuse  officially  offered  for  the  combats 
of  gladiators,  as  a  means  of  cherishing  courage  and  fostering 
the  ruder  virtues  of  antiquity,  generally  put  forward  as  their 
apology  by  private  moralists.1  Men  of  reflection,  who  were 
far  themselves  from  sharing  the  vulgar  delight  in  these  hor- 
rid spectacles  (and  it  should  be  noticed  that  no  Roman  author 
speaks  of  them  with  favour,  or  gloats  with  interest  on  their 
abominations),  acquiesced  in  the  belief  that  it  was  necessary 
to  amuse  the  multitude,  and  was  better  to  gratify  them  with 
any  indulgence  they  craved  for,  than  risk  the  more  fearful 
consequences  of  thwarting  and  controlling  them.  The  blood 
thus  shed  on  the  arena  was  the  price  they  were  content  to 
pay  for  the  safety  and  tranquillity  of  the  realm.  In  theory, 
at  least,  the  men  who  were  thus  thrust  forth  to  engage  the 
wild  beasts  were  condemned  criminals :  but  it  was  often 
necessary  to  hire  volunteers  to  complete  the  numbers  re- 
quired ;  and  this  seems  to  prove  that  the  advantage  was 
generally  on  the  side  of  the  human  combatant.  The  gladia- 
tors, although  their  profession  might  be  traced  by  antiqua- 
rians to  the  combats  of  armed  slaves  around  the  pyre  of  their 

1  Capitolin.  Max.  et  Balb.  8.  Cicero  (Tusc.  ii.  17.),  even  while  offering 
this  vindication,  cannot  help  remarking :  "  Crudele  gladiatorium  spectaculum 
nonnullis  videri  solet ;  et  haud  scio  an  ita  sit,  ut  nunc  fit."  Compare  also  his 
remarks  to  Marius  (ad  Dlv.  vii.  1.)  :  "  quae  potest  homini  polito  esse  delectatio 
quum  homo  imbecillus  a  valentissima  bestia  laniatur,"  &c.  See  also  a  passage 
to  the  same  effect  in  Seneca,  de  Brev.  Vit.  13.,  and  the  preaching  of  Apollo- 
nius  at  Athens  (Philostr.  Vit.  Apoll.  iv.  22.).  Tertullian  and  Prudentius  have 
some  declamations  against  the  exhibition ;  but  far  the  most  interesting  passage 
on  the  subject  is  the  description  in  St.  Augustine's  Confessions  (vL  13.)  of  the 
youth  Alypius  yielding  against  his  will  to  its  horrid  fascination :  "  Quid  plura  ? 
spectavit,  clamavit,  exarsit,"  &c. 
VOL.  iv. — 2*7 


418  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

master,  ending  in  their  mutual  destruction  in  his  honour, 
were  devoted  to  no  certain  death.1  They  were  generally 
slaves  purchased  for  the  purpose,  but  not  unfrequently  free 
men  tempted  by  liberal  wages  ;  and  they  were  in  either  case 
too  costly  articles  to  be  thrown  away  with  indifference. 
They  were  entitled  to  their  discharge  after  a  few  years'  ser- 
vice, and  their  profession  was  regarded  in  many  respects  as 
a  public  service,  conducted  under  fixed  regulations.2  Under 
the  emperors,  indeed,  express  laws  were  required  to  moderate 
the  ardour  even  of  knights  and  senators  to  descend  into  the 
arena,  where  they  delighted  to  exhibit  their  courage  and 
address  in  the  face  of  danger.  Such  was  the  ferocity  en- 
gendered by  the  habitual  use  of  arms,  so  soothing  to  the 
swordsman's  vanity  the  consciousness  of  skill  and  valour,  so 
stimulating  to  his  pride  the  thunders  of  applause  from  an 
hundred  thousand  admirers,  that  the  practice  of  mortal  com- 
bat, however  unsophisticated  nature  may  blench  at  its  horrors, 
was  actually  the  source  perhaps  of  more  pleasure  than  pain 
to  these  Roman  prize-fighters.  If  the  companions  of  Spar- 
tacus  revolted  and  slew  their  trainers  and  masters,  we  may 
set  against  this  instance  of  despair  and  fury  the  devotion 
of  the  gladiators  of  Antonius,  who  cut  their  way  through  so 
many  obstacles  in  an  effort  to  succour  him.  But  the  effect  of 
such  shows  on  the  spectators  themselves  was  wholly  evil ;  for 
while  they  utterly  failed  in  supplying  the  bastard  courage  for 
which  they  were  said  to  be  designed,  they  destroyed  the  nerve 
of  sympathy  for  suffering,  which  distinguishes  the  human 
from  the  brute  creation. 

The  Romans,  however,  had  another  popular  passion,  inno- 
cent at  least  of  blood  and  pain,  but  perhaps  little  less  perni- 
cious to  the  moral  character,  in  the  excess  to 

Fondness  of  •>••,-,          •     -,-,-,.        -,  •,  •   •,  •, 

the  Romans       which  they  indulged  it,  than  that  which  we  have 

for  the  bath.          .  .  -,       m  •  .1     •  •  i 

just  reviewed.    This  was  their  universal  appetite 

1  Servius  in  ^Eneid.  iii.  67. ;  TertulL  de  Spedac.  12. 

1  Hor.  Epist.  i.  1.  4. :  "  Teianius  armis 

Herculis  ad  postern  fbcis,  latet  abditua  agro, 
Ne  populum  extrema  toties  exoret  arena." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  419 

for  the  bath,  a  refreshment  which  degenerated,  in  their  im- 
moderate use  of  it,  into  an  enervating  luxury.  The  houses 
of  the  opulent  were  always  furnished  with  chambers  for  this 
purpose ;  they  had  their  warm  and  cold  baths,  as  well  as 
their  steam  apparatus  ;  and  the  application  of  oil  and  perfumes 
was  equally  universal  among  them.  From  the  earliest  times 
there  were  perhaps  places  of  more  general  resort,  where  the 
plebeian  paid  a  trifling  sum  for  the  enjoyment  of  this  luxury ; 
and  among  other  ways  of  courting  popular  favour  was  that  of 
subsidizing  the  owners  of  these  common  baths,  and  giving 
the  people  the  free  use  of  them  for  one  or  more  days.  The 
extent  to  which  Agrippa  carried  this  mode  of  bribery  has 
been  before  mentioned.  Besides  the  erection  of  lesser  baths 
to  the  number  of  an  hundred  and  seventy,  he  was  the  first  to 
construct  public  establishments  of  the  kind,  or  Thermae,  in 
which  the  citizens  might  assemble  in  large  numbers,  and  com- 
bine the  pleasure  of  purification  with  the  exercise  of  gymnas- 
tic sports  ;  while  at  the  same  time  they  might  be'  amused  by 
the  contemplation  of  paintings  and  sculptures,  and  by  listen- 
ing to  song  and  music.  The  Roman,  however,  had  his  pecu- 
liar notion  of  personal  dignity,  and  it  was  not  without  a  feel- 
ing of  uneasiness  that  he  stripped  himself  in  public  below 
the  waist,  however  accustomed  he  might  be  to  exhibit  his 
chest  and  shoulders  in  the  performance  of  his  manly  exer- 
cises.1 The  baths  of  Maecenas  and  Agrippa  remained  without 
rivals  for  more  than  one  generation,  though  they  were  ulti- 
mately supplanted  by  imperial  constructions  on  a  far  grander 
scale.  In  the  time  of  Augustus  the  resort  of  women  to  the 
public  baths  was  forbidden,  if  indeed  such  an  indecorum  had 
yet  been  imagined.  At  a  later  period,  whatever  might  be 
the  absence  of  costume  among  the  men,  the  The  manners 
women  at  least  were  partially  covered.2  An  ofthebath8- 

1  Valerius  Maximua  (ii.  1.  7.)  states  as  an  instance  of  this  modest  reserve 
that,  "  aliquando  nee  pater  cum  filio,  nee  socer  cum  genero  lavabatur."    The 
dislike  of  the  Romans,  at  their  best  period,  to  be  represented  by  naked  statues, 
has  been  already  noticed. 

2  Martial,  iii.  87.    See  Walckenaer,  Vie  cT  Horace,  i.  126. 


420  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

ingenious  writer  has  remarked  on  the  effect  produced  on  the 
spirits  by  the  action  of  air  and  water  upon  the  naked  body. 
The  unusual  lightness  and  coolness,  the  disembarrassment  of 
the  limbs,  the  elasticity  of  the  circulation,  combine  to  stimu- 
late the  sensibility  of  the  nervous  system.  Hence  the  Thenna? 
of  the  great  city  resounded  with  the  shouts  and  laughter  of 
the  bathers,  who,  when  risen  from  the  water  and  resigned  to 
the  manipulations  of  the  barbers  and  perfumers,  gazed  with 
voluptuous  languor  on  the  brilliant  decorations  of  the  halls 
around  them,  or  listened  with  charmed  ears  to  the  singers 
and  musicians,  and  even  to  the  poets  who  presumed  on  their 
helplessness  to  recite  to  them  their  choicest  compositions.1 

Such  were  the  amusements  of  the  great  mass  of  the  citi- 
zens ;  and  their  amusements  were  now  their  most  serious 
The  day  of  a  occupations.  But  the  magnanimous  Roman  of 
Roman  noble.  ^ne  caste  which  once  ruled  the  world,  and  was  still 
permitted  to  administer  it,  continued  to  be  trained  on  other 
principles,  and  was  still  taught  to  combine  in  no  unfair  pro- 
portions attention  to  business,  cultivation  of  mind,  the  exer- 
cise of  the  body,  and  indulgence  in  social  relaxations.  Bred 
up  in  the  traditions  of  an  antique  education,  these  men  could 
not  soon  be  reduced,  under  any  change  of  government,  to 
become  mere  loungers  and  triflers.  Augustus  at  least  had 
no  such  aim  or  desire ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  anxious  to 
employ  all  men  of  rank  and  breeding  in  practical  business, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  proposed  to  them  his  own  example 
as  a  follower  both  of  the  Muses  and  the  Graces.  The  Roman 
noble  rose  ordinarily  at  daybreak,  and  received  at  his  levee 
the  crowd  of  clients  and  retainers  who  had  thronged  his  door- 
step from  the  hours  of  darkness.3  A  few  words  of  greeting 
were  expected  on  either  side,  and  then,  as  the  sun  mounted 
the  eastern  sky,  he  descended  from  his  elevated  mansion  into 

1  Two  of  the  most  interesting  passages  on  the  manners  of  the  baths  are 
Senec.  Ep.  56.,  and  Petron.  Satyr.  73.  See  Walckenaer,  /.  c. 

*  For  the  disposal  of  the  Roman's  day  see  particularly  Martial,  iv.  8. : 
"  Prima  salutantes  atque  altera  continet  hora,"  &c.  Comp.  the  younger  Pliny's 
account  of  his  uncle's  day.  Epist.  iii.  5. ;  cf.  iii.  1. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  421 

the  Forum.1  He  might  walk  surrounded  by  the  still  lingering 
crowd,  or  he  might  be  carried  in  a  litter ;  but  to  ride  in  a 
wheeled  vehicle  on  such  occasions  was  no  Roman  fashion.11 
Once  arrived  in  the  Forum  he  was  quickly  immersed  in  the 
business  of  the  day.  He  presided  as  a  judge  in  one  The  tuBineSs 
of  the  basilicas,  or  he  appeared  himself  before  the  of  the  mornin&- 
judges  as  an  advocate,  a  witness,  or  a  suitor.  He  transacted 
his  private  affairs  with  his  banker  or  notary ;  he  perused  the 
Public  Journal  of  yesterday,  and  inquired  how  his  friend's 
cause  had  sped  before  the  tribunal  of  the  praetor.  At  every 
step  he  crossed  the  path  of  some  of  the  notables  of  his  own 
class,  and  the  news  of  the  day  and  interests  of  the  hour  were 
discussed  between  them  with  dignified  politeness. 

Such  were  the  morning  occupations  of  a  dies  fastus^  or 
working  day:  the  holy-day  had  its  appropriate  occupation 
in  attendance  on  the  temple  services,  in  offering  prayers  for 
the  safety  of  the  emperor  and  people,  in  sprinkling  frankin- 
cense on  the  altar,  and,  on  occasions  of  special  devotion,  ap- 
peasing the  gods  with  a  sacrifice.  But  all  transactions  of 
business,  secular  or  divine,  ceased  at  once  when  the  voice  of 
the  herald  on  the  steps  of  the  Hostilian  Curia  proclaimed  that 
the  shadow  of  the  sun  had  passed  the  line  on  the  pavement 
before  him,  which  marked  the  hour  of  midday.3  Every  door 


1  The  phrases,  descendere  in  forum  or  in  campum  (so  Hor.  iii.  1.,  "  De- 
scendit  in  campum  petitor"),  refer  to  the  comparative  level  of  the  noble  man- 
sion on  the  hill,  and  the  public  places  hi  the  valley  or  plain.    Champagny, 
Cesars,  ii.  256. 

2  The  Romans  rode  in  carriages  on  a  journey,  but  rarely  for  amusement, 
and  never  within  the  city.    Even  beyond  the  walls  it  was  considered  disre- 
putable to  hold  the  reins  oneself,  such  being  the  occupation  of  the  slave  or 
hired  driver.    Juvenal  ranks  the  consul,  who  creeps  out  at  night  to  drive  his 
own  chariot,  with  the  most  degraded  of  characters :  that  he  should  venture  to 
drive  by  daylight,  while  still  in  office,  is  an  excess  of  turpitude  transcending 
the  imagination  of  the  most  sarcastic  painter  of  manners  as  they  were.    And 
this  was  a  hundred  years  later  than  the  age  of  Augustus.    See  Juvenal,  viii. 
146.  foil. 

8 1  allude  to  the  passage,  well  known  to  the  topographers,  hi  Pliny,  Hist. 
Nat.  vii.  60. :  "  Meridies  ....  accenso  consulum  id  pronuntiante,  quum  a 
curia  inter  rostra  et  Grsecostasim  prospexisset  solem."  The  reader  will  ob- 


422  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

was  now  closed ;  every  citizen,  at  least  in  summer,  plunged 
The  midday  mto  tne  dark  recess  of  his  sleeping  chamber  for 
siesta.  the  enjoyment  of  his  meridian  slumber.  The 

midday  siesta  generally  terminated  the  affairs  of  the  day,  and 
every  man  was  now  released  from  duty  and  free  to  devote 
himself,  on  rising  again,  to  relaxation  or  amusement  till  the 
return  of  night.  If  the  senate  had  been  used  sometimes  to 
prolong  or  renew  its  sittings,  there  was  a  rule  that  after  the 
tenth  hour,  or  four  o'clock,  no  new  business  could  be  brought 
before  it,  and  we  are  told  of  Asinius  Pollio  that  he  would  not 
even  open  a  letter  after  that  hour.1  Meanwhile  Rome  had 
awakened  to  amusements  and  recreation,  and  the  grave  man 
of  business  had  his  amusements  as  well  as  the  idler  of  the 
Forum.  The  exercises  of  the  Field  of  Mars  were  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  soldiers  of  the  republic ;  and  when  the  urban  popu- 
lace had  withdrawn  from  military  service,  the 
theeFiefd  of°n '  traditions  of  the  Campus  were  still  cherished  by 
the  upper  ranks,  and  the  practice  of  its  mimic 
war  confined,  perhaps,  exclusively  to  them.  The  swimming, 
running,  riding,  and  javelin-throwing  of  this  public  ground 
became  under  the  emperors  a  fashion  of  the  nobility : 2  the 
populace  had  no  taste  for  such  labours,  and  witnessed  with 
some  surprise  the  toils  to  which  men  voluntarily  devoted 
themselves,  who  possessed  slaves  to  relieve  them  from  the 
most  ordinary  exertions.  But  the  young  competitors  in  these 
athletic  contests  were  not  without  a  throng  of  spectators : 
the  porticos  which  bordered  the  field  were  crowded  with  the 
elder  people  and  the  women,  who  shunned  the  heat  of  the 
declining  sun :  many  a  private  dwelling  looked  upon  it  from 
the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  which  was  esteemed  on  that 
account  a  desirable  place  of  residence.  Augustus  had  pro- 
serve  that  this  refers  in  strictness  to  an  earlier  period,  and  that  the  Curia  Hos- 
tilia  was  destroyed  in  the  year  52  B.  c. 

1  Senec.  de  Tranq.  Anim.  15. :  "  Quidam  nullum  non  diem  inter  et  otium 
et  curas  dividebant ;  qualem  Pollionem  Asinium,  oratorem  magnum,  memini- 
mus,  quern  nulla  res  ultra  decimam  retinuit ;  ne  epistolas  quidem  post  earn 
horam  legebat,  ne  quid  novas  curse  nasceretur." 

2  See  for  the  exercises  of  the  Campus,  Hor.  Od.  L  13.,  Art.  Poet.  379. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  423 

mised  his  favour  to  every  revival  of  the  gallant  customs  of 
antiquity,  and  all  the  Roman  world  that  lived  in  his  smiles 
hastened  to  the  scene  of  these  antique  amusements  to  gratify 
the  emperor,  if  not  to  amuse  themselves.1 

The  ancients,  it  was  said,  had  made  a  choice  of  the  Field 
of  Mars  for  the  scene  of  their  mimic  warfare  for  the  conve- 
nience of  the  stream  of  the  Tiber,  in  which  the  wearied  com- 
batants might  wash  off  the  sweat  and  dust,  and  return  to 
their  companions  in  the  glow  of  recruited  health  and  vigour.2 
But  the  youth  of  Rome  in  more  refined  days  were  not  satis- 
fied with  these  genial  ablutions.  They  resorted  to  warm  and 
vapour  baths,  to  the  use  of  perfumes  and  cosmetics,  to  en- 
hance the  luxury  of  refreshment;  and  sought  by  various 
exquisite  devices  to  stimulate  the  appetite  for  the  banquet 
which  crowned  the  evening.  The  coma  or  supper  The  evening . 
of  the  Romans  deserves  to  be  described  as  a  na-  the  BUPPer- 
tional  institution :  it  had  from  the  first  its  prescriptions  and 
traditions,  its  laws  and  usages  ;  it  was  sanctified  by  religious 
observances,  and  its  whole  system  of  etiquette  was  held  as 
binding  as  if  it  had  had  a  religious  significance.8  Under  the 

1  Horace  knew  how  to  please  his  patron  by  frequent  allusions  to  the  exer- 
cises of  the  Campus.  It  is  probable  that  they  declined  in  interest  at  a  subse- 
quent period,  and  the  mention  of  them  becomes  comparatively  rare.  But  they 
still  constituted  a  part  of  the  ordinary  occupation  of  the  day  in  the  second  cen- 
tury of  the  empire  (Martial,  ii.  14.  iv.  8.),  and  were  not  disused  in  the  third. 
TrebelL  Poll.  Claud.  13.:  "Fecerat  hoc  adolescens  in  militia  quum  ludicro 
Martiali  in  campo  luctamen  inter  fortissimos  quosque  celebraret." 

3  Veget.  de  Re  Mllit.  i.  10.  What  life  and  spirit  this  gives  to  Virgil's  lines 
at  the  end  of  the  ninth  book  of  the  JEneid : 

"  Turn  toto  corpore  sudor 
Liquitur,  et  piceum,  nee  respirare  potestas, 
Flumen  agit ;  fessos  quatit  aeger  anhelitus  artus : 
Turn  demum  praeceps  saltu  sese  omnibus  armis 
In  fluvium  dedit :  ille  suo  cum  gurgite  flavo 
Accepit  venientem,  ac  mollibus  extulit  undis, 
Et  laetum  sociis  abluta  caede  remisit." 
3  Hor.  Sat.  ii.  6.  66. : 

"  Ante  Larem  proprium  vescor,  vernasque  loquaces 

Pasco  libatis  dapibus." 
Comp.  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  631. 


424:  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMANS 

protection  of  the  gods  to  whom  they  poured  their  libations, 
friends  met  together  for  the  recreation  equally  of  mind  and 
body.  If  the  conversation  flagged  it  was  relieved  by  the  aid 
of  minstrels,  who  recited  the  famous  deeds  of  the  national 
heroes  : l  but  in  the  best  days  of  the  republic  the  guests  of 
the  noble  Roman  were  men  of  speech  not  less  than  of  deeds, 
men  consummately  trained  in  all  the  knowledge  of  their  times  ; 
and  we  may  imagine  there  was  more  room  to  fear  lest  their 
converse  should  degenerate  into  the  argumentative  and  didac- 
tic than  languish  from  the  want  of  matter  or  interest.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  the  table-talk  of  the  higher  classes  at 
Rome  was  peculiarly  terse  and  epigrammatic.  Many  speci- 
mens have  been  preserved  to  us  of  the  dry  sententious  style 
which  they  seem  to  have  cultivated :  their  remarks  on  life 
and  manners  were  commonly  conveyed  in  solemn  or  caustic 
aphorisms,  and  they  condemned  as  undignified  and  Greekish 
any  superfluous  abundance  of  words.  The  graceful  and  flow- 
ing conversations  of  Cicero's  dialogues  were  imitated  from 
Athenian  writings,  rather  than  drawn  after  the  types  of 
actual  life  around  him.  People  at  supper^  said  Varro,  him- 
self not  the  least  sententious  of  his  nation,  should  neither  be 
loquacious  nor  mute  ;  eloquence  is  for  the  forum,  silence  for 
the  bedchamber?  Another  rule  of  the  same  master  of  eti- 
quette, that  the  number  of  the  guests  should  not  exceed  nine, 
the  number  of  the  Muses,  nor  fall  short  of  three,  the  number 
of  the  Graces,  was  dictated  by  a  sense  of  the  proprieties  of 
the  Roman  banquet,  which  the  love  of  ostentation  and  pride 
of  wealth  were  now  constantly  violating.  Luxury  and  the 
appetite  for  excitement  were  engaged  in  multiplying  occa- 
sions of  more  than  ordinary  festivity,  on  which  the  most  rigid 
of  the  sumptuary  laws  allowed  a  wider  license  to  the  expen- 
ses of  the  table.  On  such  high  days  the  number  of  the  guests 
was  limited  neither  by  law  nor  custom :  the  entertainer,  the 
master  or  father,  as  he  was  called,  of  the  supper,  was  required 
to  abdicate  the  ordinary  functions  of  host,  and,  according  to 

1  Cic.  Tuse.  i.  2.,  iv.  2. ;  Nonius,  in  Assa  voce;  Val.  Max.  ii.  1.  10. 
3  Varro,  quoted  by  A.  Gellius,  xiii  11. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  425 

the  Greek  custom,  a  king  of  the  wine  or  arbiter  of  drinking, 
was  chosen  from  among  themselves  by  lot,  or  for  his  convivial 
qualities,  by  the  Bacchanalian  crew  around  him.1 

Our  own  more  polished  but  not  unmanly  taste  must  look 
with  amazement  and  even  disgust  at  the  convivial  excesses 
of  the  Romans  at  this  period,  such  as  they  have  coarseness  of 
themselves  represented  them.  Their  luxury  was  $le  EomZi0f 
a  coarse  and  low  imitation  of  Greek  voluptuous-  table- 
ness ;  and  for  nothing  perhaps  did  the  Greeks  more  despise 
their  rude  conquerors  than  for  the  manifest  failure  of  their 
attempts  at  imitating  the  vices  of  their  betters.  The  Romans 
vied  with  one  another  in  the  cost  rather  than  the  elegance  of 
their  banquets,  and  accumulated  with  absurd  pride  the  rarest 
and  most  expensive  viands  on  their  boards,  to  excite  the  ad- 
miration of  their  parasites,  not  to  gratify  their  palates.  Cleo- 
patra's famous  conceit,  in  dissolving  the  pearl  in  vinegar,  may 
have  been  the  fine  satire  of  an  elegant  Grecian  on  the  taste- 
less extravagance  of  her  barbarian  lover.  Antonius,  indeed, 
though  he  degraded  himself  to  the  manners  of  a  gladiator, 
was  a  man  of  noble  birth,  and  might  have  imbibed  purer 
tastes  at  the  tables  of  the  men  of  his  own  class ;  but  the 
establishment  of  the  imperial  regime  thrust  into  the  high 
places  of  society  a  number  of  low-born  upstarts,  the  sons  of 
the  speculators  and  contractors  of  the  preceding  generation, 
who  knew  not  how  to  dispense  with  grace  the  unbounded 
wealth  amassed  by  their  sires.8  Augustus  would  fain  have 
restrained  these  excesses,  which  shamed  the  dignified  reserve 
he  wished  to  characterize  his  court :  he  strove  by  counsel 
and  example,  as  well  as  by  formal  enactments,  to  train  his 
people  in  the  simpler  tastes  of  the  olden  time,  refined  but  not 

1  Cicero,  de  Sened.  14. :  "  Me  vero  magisteria  delectant  a  majoribus  insti- 
tuta."  This  refers,  I  conceive,  to  the  legitimate  ordering  of  the  feast  by  the 
host  himself:  the  "pater  cosnse"  (Hor.  Sat.  ii.  8.  7.).  The  Thaliarchus,  or,  as 
the  Romans  styled  him,  "  Rex  vini,"  represented  a  Greek  innovation. 

8  Tacitus  (Ann.  xii.  55.)  refers  to  the  "  luxus  mensae  a  fine  Actiaci  belli 
....  per  C  annos  profusis  sumptibus  exerciti." 


426  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

yet  enervated  by  the  infusion  of  Hellenic  culture.1  His  laws, 
indeed,  shared  the  fate  of  the  sumptuary  regulations  of  his 
predecessors,  and  soon  passed  from  neglect  into  oblivion.  His 
example  was  too  austere,  perhaps,  to  be  generally  followed 
even  by  the  most  sedulous  of  his  own  courtiers.  He  ate  but 
little,  and  was  content  with  the  simplest  fare  :  his  bread  was 
of  the  second  quality,  at  a  time  when  the  best  was  far  less 
fine  than  ours ; a  and  he  was  satisfied  with  dining  on  a  few 
small  fishes,  curds  or  cheese,  figs  and  dates,  taken  at  any  hour 
when  he  had  an  appetite  rather  than  at  regular  and  for- 
mal meals.  He  was  careful,  however,  to  keep  a  moderately 
furnished  table  for  his  associates,  at  which  he  commonly  ap- 
peared himself,  though,  as  has  been  before  remarked,  he  was 
often  the  last  to  arrive,  and  the  first  to  retire  from  it.8 

The  ordinary  arrangement  of  a  Roman  supper  consisted 
of  three  low  couches,  on  three  sides  of  a  low  table,  at  which 
Ordering  of  a  *ne  attendant  slaves  could  minister  without  in- 
Roman  supper,  commoding  the  recumbent  guests.  Upon  each 
couch  three  persons  reclined,  a  mode  which  had  been  intro- 
duced from  Greece,  where  it  had  been  in  use  for  centuries, 
though  not  from  the  heroic  times.  The  Egyptians  and  Per- 
sians sate  at  meat ;  so  till  the  Greeks  corrupted  them  did 
also  the  Jews :  the  poetical  traditions  of  Hellas  represented 
the  gods  as  sitting  at  their  celestial  banquets.  The  Macedo- 
nians also,  down  to  the  time  of  Alexander,  are  said  to  have 
adopted  the  more  ordinary  practice ;  and  such  was  the  cus- 
tom at  Rome  till  a  late  period.4  When  the  men  first  allowed 

1  The  leges  Juliae  allowed  200  sesterces  for  a  repast  on  ordinary  days, 
300  on  holidays,  1000  for  special  occasions,  such  as  a  wedding,  &c.     Gell. 
ii.  24. 

2  De  la  Malle,  in  his  work  often  cited,  has  some  elaborate  calculations  of 
the  comparative  loss  of  nourishment  in  a  given  weight  of  flour  from  the  imper- 
fect grinding  of  the  Romans. 

3  Suet.  Oct.  74.  76. 

4  The  primitive  Romans  sate  at  meals.     Serv.  in  JEn.  vii.   176.     After- 
wards men  reclined,  boys  and  women  sate ;  finally  women  reclined  also.    Val. 
Max.  ii.  1,  2.     Homer  represents  his  heroes  as  sitting ;  and  such  was  the  pos- 
ture of  the  gods  of  Olympus.     Catull.  Ixiv.  304. :  "  Qui  postquam  niveos  flexe- 
runt  sedibus  artus." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  427 

themselves  the  indulgence  of  reclining,  they  required  boys 
and  women  to  maintain  an  erect  posture,  from  notions  of 
delicacy;  but  in  the  time  of  Augustus  no  such  distinction 
was  observed,  and  the  inferiority  of  the  weaker  sex  was  only 
marked  b'y  setting  them  together  on  one  of  the  side  couches, 
the  place  of  honour  being  always  in  the  centre.  Reclined  on 
stuffed  and  cushioned  sofas,  leaning  on  the  left  elbow,  the 
neck  and  right  arm  bare,  and  his  sandals  removed,  the  Roman 
abandoned  himself,  after  the  exhaustion  of  the  palaestra  and 
the  bath,  to  all  the  luxury  of  languor.  His  slaves  relieved 
him  from  every  effort,  however  trifling : l  they  carved  for 
him,  filled  his  cup  for  him,  supplied  every  dish  for  him  with 
such  fragmentary  viands  as  he  could  raise  to  his  mouth  with 
his  fingers  only,  and  poured  water  on  his  hands  at  every  re- 
move.2 Men  of  genius  and  learning  might  amuse  themselves 
with  conversation  only ;  those  to  whom  this  resource  was  in- 
sufficient had  other  means  of  entertainment  to  resort  to.  Music 
and  dancing  were  performed  before  them  ;  actors  and  clowns 
exhibited  in  their  presence ;  dwarfs  and  hunchbacks  were 
introduced  to  make  sport  for  them ;  Augustus  himself  some- 
times escaped  from  these  levities  by  playing  at  dice  between 
the  courses ;  but  the  stale  wit  and  practical  humour,  with 
which  in  many  houses  the  banquet  seems  to  have  been  sea- 
soned, give  us  a  lower  idea  of  the  manners  of  Roman  gentle- 

1  The  structor  or  carver  was  an  important  officer  at  the  sideboard.  Carving 
was  even  taught  as  an  art,  which,  as  the  ancients  had  no  forks  (xfipofo/iav,  to 
manipulate,  was  the  Greek  term  for  it),  must  have  required  grace  as  well  as 
dexterity.     Moreau  de  Jonnfes  observes,  with  some  reason,  that  the  invention 
of  the  fork,  apparently  so  simple,  deserves  to  be  considered  difficult  and  re- 
condite.    The  Chinese,  with  their  ancient  and  elaborate  civilization,  have  failed 
to  attain  to  it.     "  Cinquante  siecles  ne  leur  ont  pas  pennis  d'imaginer  1'usage 
des  fourchettes."     /Statist,  des  anciens  Peuples,  p.  506. 

2  For  some  of  the  most  extravagant  refinements  of  the  luxury  of  the  table 
see  Martial,  iii.  82. : 

"  Stat  exoletus  suggeritque  ructanti 
Pinnas  rubentes  cuspidesque  lentisci.  .  .  . 
Percurrit  agili  corpus  arte  tractatrix, 
Manumque  doctam  epargit  omnibus  membris " 


428  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

men  than  any  perhaps  of  these  trifling  pastimes.1  The  vul- 
garity, however,  of  the  revellers  of  Rome  was  less  shocking 
than  their  indecency,  and  nothing  perhaps  contributed  more 
to  break  down  the  sense  of  dignity  and  self-respect,  the  last 
safeguard  of  Pagan  virtue,  than  the  easy  familiarity  engen- 
dered by  their  attitude  at  meals. 

Some  persons,  indeed,  men  no  doubt  of  peculiar  assurance 
and  conceit,  ventured  to  startle  the  voluptuous  languor  of  the 
Custom  of  red-  supper-table  by  repeating  their  own  compositions 
tatlon-  to  the  captive  guests."  But  for  the  most  part 

the  last  sentiments  of  expiring  liberty  revolted  against  this 
odious  oppression.  The  Romans  compounded  for  the  invio- 
late sanctity  of  their  convivial  hours  by  surrendering  to  the 
inevitable  enemy  a  solid  portion  of  the  day.  They  resigned 
themselves  to  the  task  of  listening  as  a  part  of  the  business 
of  the  morning.  The  custom  of  recitation  is  said  to  have 
been  introduced  by  Asinius  Pollio,  the  prince,  at  this  period, 
of  Roman  literature.3  It  was  in  fact  a  practice  of  somewhat 
older  date  ;  the  influence,  however,  of  so  distinguished  a  pa- 
tron may  have  brought  it  more  into  fashion,  and  established 
it  as  a  permanent  institution.  The  rich  and  noble  author 
could  easily  secure  himself  an  audience  by  merely  throwing 
wide  his  doors,  and  he  was  hardly  less  secure  of  their  accla- 
mations ;  but  when  the  usage  descended  to  the  inferior  herd 
of  literature,  who  were  obliged  to  hire  rooms  to  receive  the 
guests  they  summoned,  it  was  far  more  difficult  to  attract 
flattering  or  even  courteous  listeners.4  Such,  however,  was 

I  Suet.  Oct.  77. ;  Macrob.  Saturn,  ii.  4.     Horace's  wit  is  exquisite,  but  it 
must  be  allowed  that  his  convivial  humour  is  intolerable.     The  silliness  of  his 
butt  Nasidienus  is  far  less  odious  than  the  vulgarity  of  his  genteel  associates. 
Comp.  the  supper,  Sat.  ii.  8.,  and  the  festive  scenes  in  the  journey  to  Brundi- 
sium,  Sat.  i.  5. 

II  Cic.  ad  Att.  xvi.  2.  in  fin. 

3  M.  Seneca,  Controv.  iv.  procem. 

4Plin.  Epist.  viii.  12.;  Juvenal,  vii.  40.;  Tac.  de  Orator.  9.:  "Quorum 
exitus  hie  est,  ut  .  .  .  .  rogare  ultro  et  ambire  cogatur,  ut  sint  qui  dignentur 
audire :  et  ne  id  quidem  gratis  ;  nam  et  domum  mutuatur  et  auditorium  ex- 
struit  et  subsellia  conducit  et  libellos  dispergit,"  &c. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  429 

the  influence  of  the  mode,  that  even  under  these  discourage- 
ments the  practice  seems  to  have  maintained  its  ground  ;  at- 
tendance on  these  solemn  occasions,  whatever  natural  jeers 
or  murmurs  they  excited,  was  esteemed  a  social  duty,  and 
among  other  habits  of  higher  importance,  though  always  evil 
spoken  of,  it  was  still  faithfully  observed.  Much,  indeed,  of 
the  best  poetry  of  the  day  was  thus  recited  as  an  experiment 
on  the  taste  of  the  town ;  and  the  practice  served  in  some 
degree  the  purpose  of  our  literary  reviews,  in  pointing  out 
the  works  which  deserved  to  be  purchased  and  perused.  But 
it  owed  its  popularity  still  more,  perhaps,  to  the  national  love 
of  acting  and  declamation ;  and  while  few  of  the  company 
might  care  to  listen  to  the  reciter's  language,  all  intently  ob- 
served his  gestures  and  the  studied  modulations  of  his  voice. 
It  was  the  glory  of  the  author  to  throw  his  audience  into  a 
fever  of  excitement,  till  they  screamed  and  gesticulated  them- 
selves in  turn,  and  almost  overwhelmed  the  blushing  declaimer 
with  the  vehement  demonstration  of  their  applause.1  The 
tendency  of  such  a  system  to  stimulate  false  taste  and  dis- 
countenance modest  merit  may  easily  be  imagined.  In  the 
age  of  Augustus  the  evil  had  not  reached  its  highest  point. 
Horace,  who  describes  himself  as  weakly  in  voice  and  limb, 
and  devoid  of  personal  graces,  might  shrink  from  the  ordeal 
of  recitation  from  a  consciousness  of  these  deficiencies  rather 
than  from  greater  delicacy  of  taste ;  but  his  calm  and  judi- 
cious style  of  composition  was  not  the  less  honourably  appre- 
ciated for  the  want  of  these  spurious  recommendations.2  At 
a  later  period  the  ear  of  the  public  was  accessible  perhaps  by 
no  other  means. 

The  Romans,  it  will  be  observed,  were  not  a  people  of 
readers ;    the  invention  of  printing  would  have  Habitg  of 
been  thrown  away  upon  them;   or  rather,  had  declamation- 

1  Hor.  Art.  Poet.  428. :  "  Pulchre,  bene,  recte !  "    Pera.  i.  49. ;  Juvenal, 
vi.  582. ;  Martial,  i.  7Y. :  "At  circum  pulpita  nostra Et steriles cathedras  basia 
sola  crepant." 

2  Hor.  Sat.  i.  4.  22. :  "  Cum  mea  nemo  Scripta  legat  vulgo  recitare  timen- 
tis."     Comp.  Epiat.  L  19.  39. 


430  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

they  had  a  strong  appetency  for  reading,  they  would  un- 
doubtedly have  discovered  the  means  (on  the  verge  of 
which  they  arrived  from  more  sides  than  one)  of  abridging 
the  labour  of  copying,  and  diminishing  the  cost  of  books.1 
But  to  hear  recitation  with  its  kindred  accompaniment  of 
action,  of  which  they  were  earnest  and  critical  admirers, 
was  to  them  a  genuine  delight.  Nor  were  they  content 
with  being  merely  hearers.  With  the  buoyant  spirits  and 
healthy  enjoyment  of  children,  the  Romans  seem  to  have 
derived  pleasure,  akin  to  that  of  children,  in  the  free  exer- 
cise of  their  voice  and  lungs.  If  the  Greeks  were  great  talk- 
ers, the  Romans  were  eminently  a  nation  of  speakers.  Their 
earliest  education  was  directed  to  conning  and  repeating  old 
saws  and  legends ;  such  as  the  laws  of  the  twelve  tables,  the 
national  ballads,  and  rhythmical  histories ;  and  from  their 
tender  years  they  were  trained  to  the  practice  of  debate  and 
declamation.  Rhetoric  was  taught  them  by  technical  rules, 
and  reduced,  indeed,  to  so  formal  a  system,  that  children  of 
twelve  years,  or  even  under,  could  come  forward  and  deliver 
set  harangues  on  the  most  solemn  of  pubh'c  occasions.  Julius 
Cassar  pronounced  the  funeral  oration  of  his  aunt  in  his 
twelfth  year;  nor  was  Augustus  older  when  he  performed 
a  similar  feat.  But,  in  fact,  such  tours  de  force  were  merely 
school  exercises ;  the  form,  the  turns  of  thoughts,  the  caden- 
ces, everything  but  the  actual  words  was  modelled  to  a  pat- 
tern, allowing  neither  opportunity  for  genius,  nor  risk  of  fail- 
ure. Under  the  free  state  these  scholastic  prolusions  were 
soon  exchanged  for  the  genuine  warfare  of  the  forum  or  the 
tribunals.  The  ever-varying  demands  of  those  mighty  arenas 
on  the  talents  and  resources  of  the  noble  Roman  required  in- 
cessant study,  and  compelled  the  orator  to  devote  eveiy  leis- 

1  The  figures  on  the  tesserae  or  tablets  of  admission  to  the  theatres  were 
undoubtedly  stamped,  and  there  is  considerable  reason  to  believe  that  a  me- 
thod had  been  discovered  of  taking  off  copies  of  a  drawing  or  painting.  See 
Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxv.  2. :  "  M.  Varro  benignissimo  invento  ....  non  pas- 
sus  intercidcre  figuras  ....  in  omnes  terras  misit  ut  prsesentes  essent  ubi- 
que  .  .  .  ." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  431 

ure  hour  to  the  toils  of  practice  and  preparation.  Augustus 
never  allowed  a  day  to  pass  without  reserving  an  hour  for 
declamation,  to  keep  his  lungs  in  regular  exercise,  and  main- 
tain the  armoury  of  dialectics  furbished  for  ready  use.  Yet 
the  speeches  of  Augustus  were  not  discussions  or  contests, 
but  merely  proclamations  of  his  policy.  With  the  firmer  ap- 
plication of  a  central  authority  to  control  the  vices  of  the 
magistrates,  and  check  the  ebullitions  of  party  violence,  the 
occupation  of  his  contemporary  orators  was  lost.1  The  age 
of  the  first  princeps  was  perhaps  the  period  of  the  lowest 
decline  of  Roman  eloquence  ;  it  rose  again,  as  we  shah1  see,  to 
a  state  of  feverish  activity  under  the  reign  of  his  successors, 
when  the  favour  of  the  emperor  might  be  secured  by  ardour 
in  denouncing  crimes  against  his  honour  and  safety.  The  law 
of  Treason  evoked  a  more  copious  stream  of  rhetoric  than 
those  of  Violence  and  Rapine.  Nevertheless,  the  want  of 
worthy  subjects  for  their  powers  seems  to  have  availed  little 
in  checking  the  passion  for  oratorical  distinction  among  the 
young  declaimers  of  the  schools.  After  Augustus  had  paci- 
fied eloquence  along  with  all  things  else,  the  mature  orators 
of  the  falling  republic,  such  as  Pollio  and  Messala,  had  retired 
with  suppressed  indignation  from  the  rostra,  and  disdained  to 
degrade  their  talent  by  exercising  it  in  false  and  frivolous 
declamation.2  But  the  rising  generation,  to  whom  the  fresh 
air  of  li berty  was  unknown,  had  no  such  honourable  scruples. 
The  practice  of  the  art  in  private,  by  which  Cicero  and  his 
rivals  had  kept  the  edge  of  their  weapons  keen  for  the  en- 

1  The  37th  chapter  of  the  treatise  De  Oratoribus  is  an  eloquent  exposition 
of  this  thesis :  "  Quae  mala  sicut  non  accidere  melius  est,  isque  optimus  civita- 
tis  status  habendus  est  quo  nihil  tale  patimur;  ita,  quum  acciderent,  ingentem 
eloquentiae  materiam  subministrabant."  In  the  next  chapter  the  author  ad- 
duces as  a  further  cause  of  the  dech'ne  of  eloquence,  the  limitation  of  time, 
first  imposed  on  the  orators  by  Pompeius.  That  such  a  limitation,  once  im- 
posed, should  never  have  been  removed  again,  seems  to  show  that  it  must  have 
had  great  practical  advantages. 

*  Tacitus,  de  Orator.  38. :  "  Postquam  longa  temporum  quies  et  continuum 
populi  otium  et  assidua  senatus  tranquillitas  et  maximi  principis  disciplina 
ipsam  quoque  eloquentiam,  sicut  omnia  alia,  pacaverat." 


432  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

counters  of  the  forum,  became,  under  the  new  regime,  an  end, 

and  not  a  means.    The  counterfeit  or  shadow  was  adopted 

for  the  substance  of  oratory.    The  schools  of  the  rhetoricians, 

who  professed  instruction  in  eloquence,  were  more 

The  schools  of     „  ,     , 

the  rhetori-  frequented  than  the  forum,  the  senate-house,  and 
the  tribunals.  They  became  the  resort,  not  of 
learners  merely,  but  of  amateur  practitioners ;  and  the  verdict 
of  the  select  audience  they  entertained  was  more  highly 
prized  than  the  suffrage  of  the  judges,  or  the  applause  of  the 
populace.  Around  this  new  centre  of  exertion,  traditions  of 
its  own  began  speedily  to  gather.  It  had  its  examples  and 
authorities,  its  dictators  and  legislators,  men  whose  maxims 
became  axioms,  and  whose  sayings  were  remembered,  quoted, 
imitated,  and  pointed  afresh  by  each  succeeding  generation. 
It  had  a  manner  and  almost  a  language  of  its  own.  One  de- 
claimer  was  reproved  for  addressing  the  mixed  assemblage 
of  a  public  place  in  the  style  reserved  for  the  initiated  of  the 
School  ;'  another,  when  called  upon  to  plead  in  the  open  air, 
lost  his  presence  of  mind,  committed  a  solecism  in  his  first 
sentence,  and  called  in  his  dismay  for  the  close  walls,  the 
familiar  benches,  and  the  select  auditory  before  which  alone 
he  was  fluent  and  self-possessed." 

What  then  was  this  declamation,  which  for  the  space  of 
an  hundred  years  from  the  battle  of  Actium  was  the  most 
really  active  and  flourishing  of  all  intellectual  exercises  at 
Rome  ?  We  happen  to  possess  a  great  collection  of  its  re- 
mains, preserved  to  us  by  one  who  was  perhaps  the  most 
renowned  professor  of  the  art ;  a  man  who  rose  in  some  re- 
spects superior  to  its  trivialities,  and  lived  to  perceive  its  fatal 
tendency,  and  lament  its  degeneracy.  M.  An- 

M.  Annseus  J  J 

Seneca,  the       naeus  Seneca,  the  father  of  the  celebrated  philoso- 

rhetorician.  ,  ,  ,.     ..,.,„  i  •        i 

pher,  and  generally  distinguished  from  him  by 

1  M.  Senec.  praef.  Controv.  v. :  "  Nihil  indecentius  quam  ubi  scholasticus 
forum,  quod  non  novit,  imitatur." 

2  M.  Senec.  praef.   Controv.  iv. :   "  Nee  ante  potuisse  confirmari  tectum 
ac  parietes  desiderantem  quam  impetravit  ut  judicium  ex  foro  in  basilicam 
transferretur." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  433 

the  title  of  the  Rhetorician,  after  giving  instruction  in  Rome, 
whither  he  had  repaired,  at  the  close  of  the  civil  wars,  from 
Spain,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  was  induced,  in  extreme 
old  age,  to  put  on  record  for  his  sons  the  wittiest  and  finest 
sayings  of  the  declaimers  of  his  own  best  days,  which  had 
fallen  under  the  principate  of  Augustus.1  He  divides  into  the 
two  classes  of  Suasives  and  Controversies  the  subjects  of 
their  scholastic  exercises.  The  first  are  quasi-historical ;  as, 
whether  Alexander  should  have  launched  on  the  ocean ; 
whether  Cicero  should  have  burnt  his  Philippics :  the  second 
refer  to  debateable  points  in  ethics  or  casuistry,  ingeniously 
intricate,  and  perversely  indeterminable ;  points  on  which  the 
cleverest  things  that  can  be  said  prove  only  how  much  better 
it  were  to  be  silent.8  On  all  these  subjects  the  compiler  has 
cited  entirely,  as  he  says,  from  memory  a  multitude  of  subtle 
and  sparkling  sentiments  from  the  most  illustrious  wits  of  the 
period ;  while  in  his  prefaces  he  marks  with  strong  and  rapid 
touches  the  literary  characters  of  a  large  company  of  declaim- 
ers. In  these  pages  Porcius  Latro,  Albucius  Silo,  Arellius 
Fuscus,  Cestius,  Gallio,  Montanus,  and  many  others  have 
each  their  distinct  individuality ;  and  the  anecdotes  related  of 
them  are  often  piquant  in  themselves,  as  well  as  historically 
curious.3  The  fashion  of  epigram  and  antithesis,  which 

1  M.  Seneca,  or  Seneca  Rhetor,  was  a  native  of  Corduba  in  Spain,  and  born 
about  the  close  of  the  seventh  century  of  the  city.  He  came  to  Rome  at  the 
termination  of  the  civil  wars,  and  became  a  fashionable  teacher  of  rhetoric. 
He  wrote  also  a  history  of  his  own  times,  of  which  only  two  short  fragments 
have  been  recovered.  Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  which  was  protracted  into 
the  reign  of  Caius  Caligula,  he  addressed  to  his  three  sons,  Lucius  Seneca, 
Lucius  Mela,  and  M.  Novatus,  the  compilation  on  rhetoric  which  is  now  ex- 
tant. If  his  declaration  that  it  is  made  from  memory  is  accurate,  the  work  is 
a  very  extraordinary  one.  He  gives  other  portentous  instances  of  his  powers 
in  this  respect.  See  praef.  Controv.  i.  The  remains  of  Seneca  Rhetor  are  well 
analysed  by  Egger.  Historiens  d'Auguste,  ch.  iv. 

*  Champagny  (Cesars,  i.  212.  foil.)  has  painted  the  schools  of  the  declaim- 
ers with  great  force  and  brilliancy. 

*  Thus,  for  instance,  it  is  interesting  at  least  to  learn  that  Ovid's  fine  say- 
ing, "  Anna  viri  fortis  medios  mittantur  in  hostes,"  &c.,  was  taken  from  a  de- 
clamation of  Latro.    There  is  also  an  amusing  story  of  the  poet's  friends  ask- 

VOL.  iv. — 28 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

these  rhetoricians  introduced,  was  more  fatal  to  truth  and 
justness  of  sentiment  than  even  the  florid  exuberance  of 
Cicero  and  his  imitators.  The  habit  of  estimating  logical  ar- 
guments by  the  accessories  of  style  alone  soon  leapt  from  the 
schools  to  the  tribunals.  The  noblest  of  the  Romans,  accused 
of  plunder  or  extortion  in  the  provinces,  and  assailed  -with 
virulent  licence  of  tongue  as  a  thief  or  brigand,  could  reply, 
not  by  refuting  the  charges  with  evidence  or  reason,  but  by 
curiously  poising  them  in  a  balance  of  antitheses,  and  receive, 
if  not  his  acquittal,  that  which  perhaps  for  the  moment  he 
valued  higher,  the  admiration  and  applause  of  his  judges.1 

A  glimpse  of  this  curious  fragment  of  Roman  literary  life 
may  leave  a  feeling  of  wonder,  not  unmixed  with  pity,  at  the 
exuberance  of  animal  spirits  fostered  by  the  train- 
rules  for  the      ing  of  the  Campus  and  Pala?stra,  which  found  a 

declaimers.  .        ,         .,  .  ,  .  ,       , 

vent,  in  the  silence  imposed  on  serious  and  sober 
thought,  in  vociferating  conceits  and  puerilities  with  all  the 
force  of  the  lungs,  and  the  by-play  of  attitudes  and  ges- 
tures. If  the  subject  of  the  debate  was  merely  moonshine,  if 
its  schemes  and  colours  and  sentences  were  in  a  great  degree 
conventional,  yet  the  manner,  the  movements,  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  dress,  the  management  of  the  voice,  all  these 
came  more  and  more  to  take  the  place  of  real  meaning  and 
purpose,  and  were  subjected  themselves  to  rule  and  rigid  cen- 
sure. The  hair  was  to  be  sedulously  coifed ;  directions  were 
given  for  the  conduct  of  the  handkerchief;  the  steps  in  ad- 
ing  leave  to  select  three  of  his  lines  to  be  expunged,  and  his  consenting,  on 
condition  that  he  might  also  select  three  to  retain.  The  lines,  on  being  pro- 
duced, were  found  to  be  the  same.  Two  of  them  are  mentioned :  "  Semi- 
bovemque  virum,  semivirumque  bovem,"  was  one :  "  Egelidum  Borean,  egeli- 
dumque  Noton,"  another.  I  think  Ovid  was  right.  It  is  added ;  "  Aiebat 
interim  decentiorem  faciem  esse  in  qua  aliquis  naevus  esset."  I  am  inclined 
to  agree  with  him  again.  The  saving  is  very  characteristic.  For  historical 
anecdotes  I  may  refer  to  those  about  Cicero,  Cremutius  Cordus,  and  other 
celebrated  personages. 

1  Persius,  L  85.:  "Fur  es,  ait  Pedio ;  Pedius  quid?  crimina  rasia 

Librat  in  antithetis ;  doctas  posuisse  figuras 
Laudatur." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  435 

vance  or  retreat,  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left,  which  the 
orator  might  safely  take  were  numbered.  He  was  to  rest  so 
many  instants  only  on  each  foot  alternately,  to  advance  one 
so  many  inches  only  before  the  other ;  the  elbow  must  not  be 
raised  above  a  certain  angle ;  the  fingers  should  be  set  off 
with  rings,  but  not  too  many,  nor  too  large  ;  and  in  elevating 
the  hand  to  exhibit  them,  he  must  be  careful  not  to  disar- 
range his  head-dress.  Every  emotion  had  its  prescribed  index 
in  the  gesture  appropriated  to  it.  The  audience  of  scholars 
and  amateurs  who  crowded  to  these  private  theatricals,  ap- 
plauded with  intense  enthusiasm  not  the  passion  nor  even  the 
conceit  so  much  as  the  correctness  of  the  pantomime.  From 
the  schools  all  these  conventions  were  transferred  to  the  tri- 
bunals ;  and  a  century  after  Augustus,  a  judicious  professor 
of  the  art  of  speaking  could  devote  several  pages  of  his  elab- 
orate treatise  on  the  Institution  of  an  Orator  to  the  discussion 
of  these  and  many  other  points  of  etiquette  in  dress,  manners, 
and  attitude.1 

The  pernicious  effects  of  this  solemn  trifling  seem  to  have 
perverted  the  moral  sense  of  the  Romans  more  speedily  than 
even  their  literary  style.  Itself  the  creation  in 

i-i  •  i      MI    General  purity 

part  of  an  era  of  hollow  pretensions,  it  reacted  still  and  terseness 

•-          j  3         3  _i  „  of  style  in  the 

more  powerfully  upon  it,  and  produced  the  tone  of  Augustan 
insincerity  which  pervades  the  monuments  of  its 
mind  and  intellect.  Yet  it  was  long  before  it  affected  that 
justness  of  thought,  that  purity  of  taste,  and  that  accuracy  of 
diction  which  distinguished  the  compositions  of  the  Augustan 
age ;  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  declaimers  them- 
selves, of  whom  mention  has  been  made,  were  of  the  same 
generation  as  the  men  who  could  cheer  with  correct  discrimina- 
tion a  Livy,  a  Virgil,  and  a  Horace.  Seneca  himself  was  not 
unconscious  of  the  meanness  of  his  art,  and  contrived  to  keep 
his  language  but  little  corrupted  by  the  conceits  with  which  he 

1  Quintilian,  Inst.  Oral.  xi.  3.  His  examples  are  in  a  great  measure  de- 
rived from  the  usage  of  Cicero,  and  even  Demosthenes ;  and  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  physical  accessories  of  oratory  were  studied  with  a  care  which 
was  not  altogether  superfluous  in  the  best  ages  of  Greek  and  Roman  eloquence. 


436  HISTORY  OF  THE  EOMANS 

burdened  his  memory.    The  purest  master  of  Latin  prose  we 
possess,  the  illustrious  Titus  Livius,  was  himself 

Titus  Livius.       r 

a  frequenter  of  the  schools,  and,  perhaps,  even  a 
professor  of  rhetoric.1  If  his  style  escaped  the  contagion  of 
such  evil  influences,  if  his  judgment  and  fancy  retained  their 
well-adjusted  balance,  he  may  still  have  lost  in  that  baneful 
atmosphere  the  clear  perceptions  of  truth  and  candour,  and 
the  abiding  sense  of  moral  obligation,  which  should  hold 
sleepless  vigil  round  the  desk  of  the  historian.  Devoid  of 
these,  the  passion  for  liberty  is  as  rank  a  perverter  of  justice 
as  the  meanest  servility :  the  truth  of  history  was  sacrificed  as 
much  by  the  few  indomitable  spirits  who  still  thundered 
against  tyranny,  as  by  the  supple  flatterers  who  painted  the 
tyrant  in  the  colours  of  a  patriot  and  demigod.  If  we  pos- 
sessed the  Annals  of  the  surly  republican  Labienus,  we  should 
doubtless  find  them  no  more  to  be  relied  on  than  the  panegy- 
rical biographies  of  the  courtier  Nicolaus.  It  is  mentioned  as 
a  proof  of  the  freedom  with  which  Labienus  had  lashed  the 
crimes  of  the  great  and  powerful,  that  in  reciting  to  his 
friends,  he  would  sometimes  roll  up  whole  paragraphs  of  the 
volume,  saying,  What  I  now  pass  over  will  be  read  after  my 
death?  But  the  man  who  writes,  under  such  circumstances, 
for  posterity  what  he  dares  not  divulge  to  his  contemporaries, 
subjects  himself  to  a  temptation  to  gratify  malice  by  calum- 
ny, which  few  can  withstand,  and  which  none  should  venture 
to  disregard. 

It  was  in  the  schools,  we  may  believe,  that  Livy  learnt 
that  indifference  to  historical  accuracy,  that  sacrifice  of  the 
character  of  substance  to  the  form  of  truth,  which  has  cast  a 
Livy's  history.  ghade  over  tne  mstre  of  ms  immortal  work.  As 

1  This  may  be  inferred,  perhaps,  from  comparing  Senec.  Epist.  100. — 
"  Scripsit  enim  et  dialogos,  quos  non  magis  philosophise  annumerare  possis 
quam  historic,  et  ex  professo  philosophiam  continentes  libros  " — with  Quintil. 
Inst.  Oral.  viii.  2.  18.,  x.  1.  39.,  and  Suet.  Claud.  41. 

a  M.  Senec.  pr»f.  Controv.  v. :  "  Memini  aliquando  cum  recitaret  historiam 
magnam  partem  convolvisse  et  dixisse,  haec  quae  transeo  post  mortem  meam 
legentur."  His  books  were  burnt  by  a  decree  of  the  senate.  Cassius  Severua 
said:  " Nunc  me  vivum  uri  oportet,  qvu  illos  edidici." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  437 

a  friend  of  the  ancient  oligarchy,  and  an  aristocrat  in  preju- 
dices and  temper,  he  would  scarcely  have  carried  his  Roman 
history  down  to  his  own  times,  had  he  not  submitted  to  veil 
his  real  sentiments,  and  made  his  book  such  as  Augustus  him- 
self might  sanction  for  the  perusal  of  his  subjects.  The 
emperor,  indeed,  is  said  to  have  called  him  a  Pompeian,  and 
to  have  complained  of  the  colours  in  which  he  pourtrayed 
the  men  of  the  opposite  side  ;  but  this  could  only  have  been 
in  jest :  the  favour  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  courtiers  of 
the  empire,  and  his  being  suffered  to  assist  the  studies  of 
Claudius  Germanicus,  show  that  he  was  not  seriously  regard- 
ed as  a  disaffected  politician.1  The  scorn  which  Livy  heaps 
on  the  tribunes  and  demagogues,  and  his  ignorant  contempt 
for  the  Plebs,  evince  the  leaning  of  his  mind  to  the  side  of 
the  nobility.  But  these  are  obviously  the  views  of  the 
rhetorician  rather  than  of  the  historian ;  and  Augustus,  tri- 
bune and  demagogue  as  he  was,  could  distinguish  between 
the  hollow  commonplaces  of  a  perverted  education  and  the 
stern  judgment  of  genuine  conviction.  The  loss  of  the  latter 
portions  of  this  extensive  work  must  be  deplored  for  the 
number  of  facts  it  has  swept  into  oblivion ;  but  the  facts 
would  have  been  valuable  rather  from  the  inferences  modern 
science  might  deduce  from  them,  than  from  the  light  in  which 
the  author  would  himself  have  placed  them.  Livy,  taking  the 
pen  in  middle  life,  and  continuing  to  pour  forth  his  volumes 
in  interminable  succession,  perhaps  to  the  end  of  his  long 
career, — for  born  in  the  year  695,  he  died  in  771, — left  it  still 
apparently  unfinished,  at  the  close  of  his  hundred  and  forty- 
second  book,  and  with  the  demise  of  Drusus  Germanicus.2  It 

1  Tac.  Ann.  iv.  34. ;  Suet.  Claud.  41.  Nevertheless,  in  the  preface  to  his 
work,  Livy  alludes  with  deep  feeling  to  the  misery  of  the  times  he  had  wit- 
nessed ;  and  his  presentiment  of  national  decline — "  Hsec  tempora  quibus  nee 
vitia  nostra  nee  remedia  pati  possumus  " — must  have  been  highly  unpalatable 
to  the  reigning  powers. 

a  Niebuhr's  remarks  on  the  dates  of  Livy's  history  (Rom.  Hist,  iv.)  may 
be  compared  with  the  more  common  view  given  in  Smith's  Dictionary  and 
elsewhere.  I  think  the  beginning  of  the  work  must  be  placed  in  725 — 730 ; 
but  adopting  the  idea  that  it  was  originally  divided  into  decades,  the  fact,  now 


438  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

may  be  conjectured  that  the  latter  portions  of  the  work  were 
overtaken  by  the  garrulity  of  old  age,  and  were  suffered  to 
fall  into  oblivion  from  their  want  of  political  or  literary  value.1 
It  is  in  the  earlier  books,  however,  that  the  spirit  of  Livy 
found  its  most  congenial  sphere  ;  the  first  and  third  decades, 
The  service  containing  the  early  history  of  the  kings  and  con- 
£lir^LfToTn.  suls,  and  again  the  grand  epic  of  the  war  with 
Hannibal,  have  always  retained  their  pre-eminence 
in  general  esteem  as  the  noblest  specimens  of  narration.  The 
greatest  minds  of  Rome  at  this  period  seem  to  have  kindled 
with  inspiration  from  the  genius  of  the  founder  of  the  em- 
pire ;  and  of  these  Livy  at  least  appears  to  have  conceived 
unconsciously  the  idea  of  attaching  his  countrymen  to  the 
early  records  of  their  city,  by  encircling  it  with  a  halo  of 
poetical  associations.  The  imagination  of  the  Romans  of  that 
age  was  inflamed  by  the  conservative  reaction  which  sought 
to  bridge  the  chaos  of  the  last  century,  and  revive  the  sense 
of  national  continuity.  The  thanks  the  race  of  Romulus 
owed  to  Livy,  for  making  them  acquainted  with  their  ances- 
tors and  proud  of  their  descent,  were  akin  to  those  which 
Englishmen  acknowledge  to  the  historical  dramas  of  Shak- 
speare.  He  took  the  dry  chronicles,  in  which  alone  their  first 
affairs  were  written,  drew  forth  from  them  the  poetic  life  of 
half-forgotten  traditions,  and  clothed  it  again  in  forms  of  ideal 
beauty.  His  narrative,  glowing  in  all  the  colours  of  imaginar 

demonstrated,  that  it  reached  to  a  142nd  book,  seems  to  show  that  it  was  not 
left  complete  according  to  the  author's  intentions.  It  is  also  well  remarked 
that  the  death  of  Drusus  does  not  furnish  a  point  of  sufficient  importance  for 
the  termination  of  the  great  epic  of  Roman  history.  This  view  is  supported 
by  the  interesting  statement  of  Pliny,  that  in  one  of  his  latter  books  Livy  had 
declared  :  "Satis  jam  sibi  gloriae  quaesitum :  et  potuisse  se  desinere,  nisi  ani- 
mus inquies  pasceretur  opere."  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  praef.  A  period  of  more 
than  forty  years  thus  devoted  to  the  elaboration  of  a  single  work  is  not  un- 
paralleled. Froissart  was  engaged  forty  years  upon  his  Chronicles. 

1  We  have  sustained  undoubtedly  a  great  loss  in  the  characters  of  the 
chief  men  of  later  Roman  history,  such  as  Livy  so  frequently  inserted  into  his 
narrative,  and  of  which  we  have  one  fine  example  in  the  fragment  on  the 
death  of  Cicero.  The  ancients  declared  him,  "  Candidiasimus  magnorum  in- 
geniorum  testimator."  M.  Senec.  Suasor.  1. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  439 

tion  and  fancy,  is  just  as  faithful  to  its  authorities  as  the 
dramatized  histories  of  the  English  hard  to  theirs ;  indeed, 
the  myths  of  Romulus  and  Tarquin  cannot  lie  farther  from 
the  truth  of  facts  than  the  tragedies  of  Lear  and  Cymbeline : 
and  when  he  begins  to  tread  the  domain  of  sober  history,  his 
painted  Hannibals  and  Scipios  approach  as  nearly  to  the  men 
themselves  as  the  Richards  and  Henrys  of  our  own  mighty 
master.  The  charms  of  Livy's  style  befitted  the  happy  con- 
junction of  circumstances  under  which  he  wrote,  and  com- 
bined with  it  to  give  him  that  pre-eminence  among  Roman 
historians  which  he  never  afterwards  lost.  The  events  and 
characters  of  deepest  interest  became  immutably  fixed  in  the 
lines  in  which  he  had  represented  them.  Henceforth  every 
Roman  received  from  Livy  his  first  impressions  of  his  coun- 
try's career,  which  thus  became  graven  for  ever  in  the  mind 
of  the  nation.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  inaccuracy  of  these  re- 
lations, and  in  many  cases  their  direct  falsehood,  were  pointed 
out  by  the  votaries  of  truth,  or  by  jealous  and  unsuccessful 
rivals  ;  henceforth  it  was  treason  to  the  majesty  of  Rome  to 
doubt  that  Porsena  was  driven  in  confusion  from  her  walls,  or 
that  the  spoils  of  the  Capitol  were  wrested  again  from  the 
triumphant  legions  of  Brennus.1 

The  poets  lie  under  no  such  obligation  to  speak  the  truth, 
and  Virgil  requires  no  excuse  for  his  endeavour  to  inflame  the 
patriotism  of  his  countrymen  by  a  fanciful  account  VirKil  an  en. 
of  their  origin.  But,  writing  as  he  did  a  few  years  thUBlast- 
earlier  than  Livy,  and  in  all  the  glow  of  patriotic  fervour,  the 
spiiit  which  animated  him  was  doubtless  far  more  genuine. 
The  simplicity  of  his  genius  shrank  from  the  subtle  inventions 
of  the  schools,  to  which,  indeed,  his  youth  had  been  a  stran- 
ger ;  he  uttered  the  convictions  of  an  imagination  which  he 
felt  as  an  inspiration,  and  he  spoke  from  a  sense  of  duty  which 
had  almost  the  force  of  compulsion.  We  have  seen  how 
this  child  of  the  Muses,  born  and  bred  in  rustic  retirement, 
was  expelled  from  his  patrimony  by  an  intruding  soldier,  and 
restored  beyond  expectation  by  the  kindly  interference  of 
1  Comp.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xxxiv.  39. ;  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  Y2. 


440  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Pollio.  "We  have  traced  him  under  the  shadow  of  the  gra- 
cious patronage  of  Maecenas,  and  the  generous  countenance 
of  Octavius  himself.  We  have  marked  the  enthusiasm  of 
gratitude  for  himself,  and  hope  for  his  country,  with  which  he 
seized  the  popular  sentiment  in  favour  of  the  Western  trium- 
vir, in  his  contest  with  the  pirate  Sextus  and  the  renegade 
Antonius.  His  ardour  in  the  cause  of  law,  order,  and  tradi- 
tion assumed  the  character  of  a  religious  sentiment,  and  he 
conceived  himself  devoted  to  a  great  moral  mission.  His 
purpose  widened,  and  his  enthusiasm  grew  deeper,  as  he  con- 
templated the  sins  of  his  countrymen,  and  the  means  by  which 
alone  they  might  be  expiated  :  their  abandonment,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  the  first  duties  of  their  being ;  on  the  other,  the  res- 
toration of  belief,  and  a  return  to  the  principles  of  the  past. 
The  character  of  Yirgil  deserves  the  interest  and  awe  which, 
however  grotesquely  delineated,  it  excited  in  the  middle  ages. 
His  spirit  belonged  to  the  Ages  of  Faith.  In  the  twelfth 
century  he  might  have  founded  an  order  of  monkery  or  of 
knighthood. 

It  is  not  in  his  first  known  compositions,  the  Eclogues,  the 
dates  of  which  extend  from  713  to  717,  or  from  his  twenty- 
ninth  to  his  thirty-third  year,  that  this  sense  of  a 

The  Eclogues.  .  .     . 

religious  mission  can  be  generally  traced.  There 
is,  however,  a  certain  earnestness  of  feeling  in  the  fourth  and 
sixth,  which  seems  to  show  that  the  depths  of  the  poet's  soul 
were  already  stirring  within  him;  and  the  ardent  love  of 
peace  and  justice  they  commonly  exhibit,  may  have  sufficed 
to  attract  the  observation  of  Mascenas,  as  the  adviser  of  the 
new  sovereignty,  and  lead  him  to  enlist  the  young  enthusiast 
in  the  service  of  the  government,  to  expound  in  an  attractive 
form  the  principles  it  pretended  to  assert.  The  tradition  that 

Maecenas  himself  suggested  the  composition  of 

TheGeorgics. 

the  i^eorgics  may  be  accepted,  not  in  the  literal 
sense  which  has  generally  been  attached  to  it,  as  a  means  of 
reviving  the  art  of  husbandry  and  the  cultivation  of  the  de- 
vastated soil  of  Italy ;  but  rather  to  recommend  the  princi- 
ples of  the  ancient  Romans,  their  love  of  home,  of  labour, 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  441 

of  piety,  and  order ;  to  magnify  their  domestic  happiness  and 
greatness ;  to  make  men  proud  of  their  country,  on  better 
grounds  than  the  mere  glory  of  its  arms  and  the  extent  of  its 
conquests.  It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  Virgil's  verses 
induced  any  Roman  to  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  or  take 
from  his  bailiff  the  management  of  his  own  estates ;  but  they 
served  undoubtedly  to  revive  some  of  the  simple  tastes  and 
sentiments  of  the  olden  time,  and  perpetuated,  amidst  the 
vices  and  corruptions  of  the  empire,  a  pure  stream  of  sober 
and  innocent  enjoyments,  of  which,  as  we  journey  onward, 
we  shall  rejoice  to  catch  at  least  occasional  glimpses. 

To  comprehend  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  Georgics,  in 
point  of  mere  style  .the  most  perfect  piece  of  Roman  litera- 
ture, we  must  regard  it  as  the  glorification  of  La- 

•U  T      ^      V    J  *'  -T-D  1     Tfce  moral 

bour.  In  the  better  times  ot  Kome,  when  manual  grandeur  of  the 
labour  was  still  in  honour,  it  was  to  husbandry 
and  arms  that  its  exercise  was  confined.  It  was  not  for  the 
reviver  of  antiquity  to  cast  his  eye  over  newer  fields  of  indus- 
try, such  as  the  occupations  of  trade  and  science,  and  direct 
to  them  the  minds  of  his  countrymen ;  and  of  arms  there  had 
been  already  more  than  enough :  it  is  on  husbandry,  accord- 
ingly, that  Virgil  fixes  his  admiration,  and  throws  on  the 
labours  of  the  husbandman,  hard  and  coarse  as  they  seem  to 
the  unpurged  vision,  all  the  colours  of  the  radiant  heaven  of 
the  imagination.  Labor  improbus,  incessant,  importunate 
labour,  conquers  all  things ;  subdues  the  soil,  baffles  the  in- 
clemency of  the  seasons,  defeats  the  machinations  of  Nature, 
that  cruel  step-mother,  and  wins  the  favour  and  patronage  of 
the  gods.1  For  gods  there  are  who  have  ever  looked  with 
kindness  on  the  industry  and  piety  of  man,  who  have  shown 
to  him  the  excellent  uses  of  every  product  of  the  soil,  who 
have  blest  his  labour  with  increase,  and  averted  evil  from  his 

1  Virgil,  Georg.  i.  121. : 

"  Pater  ipse  colendi 

Haud  facilem  esse  viam  voluit    ....    Labor  omnia  vincit 
Iroprobua    .    .     .     ." 


442  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

roof.1  The  first  Georgic  may  be  viewed  as  the  poet's  protest 
against  the  unbelief  of  philosophy :  the  shield  of  Lucretius  is 
pierced  through  and  through  by  the  fiery  blade  of  Virgil ; 
the  frigid  pleas  of  naturalism  dissolve  in  the  blaze  of  light- 
ning which  Jove  himself,  with  his  red  right  hand,  hurls  from 

the  night  of  the  thunder-clouds Then  before  all 

things,  says  the  preacher,  venerate  the  Gods.3  Nor  is  reli- 
gion harsh  and  exacting  in  its  rites.  Though  it  prescribes 
many  days  of  repose,  and  gives  no  success  to  ordinary  labour 
on  some  others,  yet  certain  works  there  are  which  are  not 
even  then  prohibited ;  the  husbandman  is  never  bidden  by  the 
Gods  to  fold  his  hands  in  idleness.3  May  they  now,  he  con- 
tinues, save  the  saviour  of  the  state,  the  support  of  this  sink- 
ing age.  Octavius  was  the  object  against  whom  all  the  dag- 
gers which  had  met  in  his  father's  bosom  were  once  more 
levelled :  he  was  exposed  to  perils  in  war,  to  perils  by  sea 
and  land :  his  frame  was  weak,  his  health  was  precarious, 
and  the  most  pious  of  the  Romans  were  offering  vows  for  his 
safety,  and  engaging  their  heirs  to  sacrifice  to  the  Gods  in 
their  name,  in  gratitude  for  the  blessing  of  leaving  him  their 
survivor.4 

The  praise  of  Italy  might  wean  the  restless  Romans  from 
the  visions  of  an  Atlantis,  a  paradise  beyond  the  sea,  which 

1  Georg.  i.  125.  147. : 

"  Ante  Jovem  nulli  subigebant  arva  colon!  .... 
Prima  Ceres  ferro  mortales  vertere  glebam  .  .  .  ." 

5  Georg.  i.  328.  338. : 

"  Ipse  Pater  media  nimborum  in  nocte  corusca 
Fulmina  molitur  dextra  .... 
In  primis  venerate  Deos  .  .  .  ." 
1  Georg.  i.  268. : 

"  Quippe  etiam  festis  quaedam  exercere  diebus 
Fas  et  jura  sinunt." 

4  Suet.  Oct.  59. ;   Georg.  i.  498. : 
"DJ  patrii  Indigetes  .  .  . 
Hunc  saltern  everso  juvenem  succurrere  saeclo 
Xe  prohibete  .  .  .  ." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  443 

had  flitted  before  their  eyes  since  the  days  of  Ser-  Tho  ^neid . 
torius,  and  which  they  too  often  sought  to  realize  ofetf  jf  R^nT 
by  quitting  the  stern  duties  of  their  fatherland  andofAugus- 
for  the  pleasant  indulgences  of  the  East.     Its 
fields  and  river  sides  might  supply  those  charms  of  indolent 
repose,  for  which  the  wearied  warrior  too  often  repaired  to 
the  blandishments  of  Athens  or  Ephesus.    The  institutions 
of  an  imperial  republic  might  be  aptly  recommended  by  the 
example  of  the  prudent  bees,  the  insects  which  nature  has 
herself  endued  with  the  instinct  of  divine  order.1    But  the 
pious  sentiment  of  Virgil  receives  its  strongest  expression  in 
the  monument  he  has  erected  to  the  glories  of  his  country- 
men, and  of  their  tutelary  saint  Augustus.    The  grand  reli- 
gious idea  which  breathes  throughout  his  JEneid, 

'    The  religious 

is  the  persuasion  that  the  .Romans  are  the  sons  idea  which  per- 
and  successors  of  the  Trojans,  the  chosen  race  of 
heaven,  of  divine  lineage  and  royal  pretensions,  whose  desti- 
nies have  engaged  all  the  care  of  Olympus  from  the  begin- 
ning, till  they  reach  at  last  their  consummation  in  the  blissful 
regeneration  of  the  empire.  It  maintains  the  existence  of 
Providence  as  the  bond  of  the  Roman  commonwealth.  Yes  ! 
they  are  Gods,  it  proclaims,  and  the  glories  of  Rome  demon- 
strate it.  Yes !  there  are  Gods  above,  and  the  Romans  are 
their  children  and  their  ministers  upon  earth,  exercising  in 
their  name  a  delegated  sovereignty,  sparing  those  who  yield, 
but  beating  down  the  proud.  This  is  the  mission  of  the  race 
of  Assaracus,  to  vindicate  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  to  impose 
upon  him  the  yoke  of  an  eternal  peace,  and  bring  all  wars  to 
an  end  for  ever ! 2 

But  the  government  of  Olympus  is  monarchical :  the  Jove- 
bom  demigods  and  heroes  have  all  been  kings  themselves, 
ruling  their  children  and  descendants  with  the  it8  vindication 
dignity  and  authority  of  patriarchs.  Hence  the  »f  monarchy. 

1  Georg.  ii.  iv. 

4  Virg.  jEn.  ix.  643. : 

"  Jure  omnia  bella 
Gente  sub  Assaraci  fato  ventura  resident." 


444  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Romans  may  submit  without  dishonour  to  the  sceptre  of  a 
patriarch  of  their  own.  He  has  recovered,  indeed,  with  the 
sword  the  kingdom  of  his  ancestors,  but  the  divine  effulgence 
of  his  countenance  suffices  to  attest  his  claims.  His  legiti- 
mate right  may  be  traced  through  his  illustrious  ancestors, 
and  is  impressed  upon  us  by  many  a  sounding  reference  to 
the  faith  of  ancient  days.  Virgil  read  in  the  legend  of  Rome 
that  it  was  founded  by  the  descendants  of  ^Eneas  ;  but  this 
-^Eneas,  though  he  traced  his  descent  from  Trojan  kings,  and, 
like  other  heroes,  from  Jove  himself,  neither  in  this  nor  in 
other  respects  stood  pre-eminent  above  his  peers.  In  the 
glories  of  the  Trojan  war  he  had  borne  no  superior  part : 
what  claim  could  be  advanced  for  him  to  rule  over  the  Tro- 
jans, or  centre  in  ^timself  and  his  posterity  the  interest  of  all 
the  offspring  of  Dardanus  and  Tros  ?  To  raise  ^Eneas  to  the 
place  of  Hector,  to  make  him  the  virtual  successor  of  Priam, 
the  last  and  greatest  of  the  heroes,  this  was  the  enterprise 
Virgil  undertook.  Accordingly,  we  may  observe  how  every- 
thing is  made  to  conspire  to  thrust  this  pre-eminence  upon 
him.  Hector  himself,  when  all  hope  has  vanished,  counsels 
his  flight  from  the  crumbling  city ;  Hector  commends  to  him 
the  Penates  of  his  land ;  Hector  foretells  to  him  the  new  city 
he  shall  found  beyond  the  seas.  Troy  has  been  utterly  over- 
thrown, Priam  and  all  his  sons  have  vanished  from  the  stage, 
Astyanax,  the  hope  of  Troy,  has  perished.  Helenus,  the  last 
survivor  of  the  race,  pious  and  resigned,  speeds  the  fated  hero 
on  his  voyage,  and  assures  him  of  the  favour  of  the  gods. 
The  house  of  Hus,  the  elder  branch  of  the  Dardanian  stem,  is 
prostrate  on  the  ground ;  all  its  rights  and  honours,  its  hopes 
and  aspirations,  have  reverted  to  the  offspring  of  the  cadet 
Assaracus.1  Around  him  the  gods  of  Troy  now  watch  with 

1  The  stemma  of  the  royal  race  of  Troy  was  this: — 1.  Dardanus.     2. 
Erichthonius.     3.  Tros.     4.  Hus  and  Assaracus. 

Hus  had  6.  Laomedon,  6.  Priam,  *7.  Hector,  &c. 

Assaracus  had  5.  Capys,  6.  Anchises,  7.  ^Eneas,  &c. 

Homer,  //.  xx.  219.  foil.  This  genealogy,  though  not  distinctly  asserted,  is 
supposed  throughout  the  jEneid. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  445 

peculiar  care.  All  his  steps  are  guided  or  controlled  by 
omens.  He  submits  himself  in  all  things  to  the  will  of 
heaven  thus  visibly  revealed  to  him.  At  its  bidding  he  sur- 
renders every  natural  desire,  the  desire  to  perish  sword  in 
hand  among  the  flames  of  Troy,  to  recover  his  wandering 
wife  Creusa,  to  yield  to  love  and  repose  in  the  sweet  embrace 
of  Dido.  The  oracles  of  the  gods  still  marshal  him  on  his 
way :  they  go  before  him  to  Italy,  and  king  Latinus  is  already 
apprised  that  he  must  yield  his  daughter  to  a  stranger,  ere 
-<Eneas  steps  on  the  Lavinian  shore,  and  presents  himself  as 
her  suitor.1  In  vain  the  Furies  and  Demons  interpose,  with 
even  the  envious  Juno  at  their  head ;  the  foe  must  be  over- 
thrown, the  bride  be  won ;  the  chosen  race  of  Dardanus  and 
Assaracus,  bearing  with  it  the  destinies  of  Hus  and  Priam, 
must  unite  with  the  native  dynasty  of  Alba,  and  the  line  of 
kings  which  springs  from  this  triple  legitimacy  combine 
every  right  to  reign,  and  fulfil  every  augury  of  fortune.  To 
complete  the  poetic  justice  of  this  development  of  fate,  we 
are  reminded  that  Dardanus  himself,  the  first  of  the  Trojans, 
was  of  Italian  origin,  and  his  descendants  are  not  really 
strangers  in  the  land  of  their  adoption.2  Henceforth  the 
mingled  blood  of  Troy  and  Latium  flows  in  many  channels : 
in  one  it  descends,  through  Silvius,  Numitor  and  Hia,  to 
Romulus ;  in  another  it  animates  the  race  of  the  Julii ;  and 
thus  Augustus  becomes  by  legitimate  adoption  the  offspring 
of  lulus  and  tineas,  of  Venus  and  Jove.  Once  more,  the 
family  of  his  mother  Atia  derives  from  Atys,  the  companion 
of  lulus,  and  thus  Augustus  is  Trojan  on  either  side.8 

1  Virg.  jEn.  vii.  255. : 

"  Hunc  ilium  fatis  externa  ab  sede  profectum 

Portendi  generum." 
a  Virg.  jEn.  vii.  206. : 

"  His  ortus  ut  agris 

Dardanus  Idaeas  Phrygiae  penetrarit  ad  urbes." 
3  jEn.  v.  568. : 

"  Alter  Atys,  genus  unde  Atium  duxere  Latini : 

Parvus  Atys,  pueroque  puer  dilectus  lulo." 
These  remarks  on  the  poems  of  Virgil  have  been  derived  in  a  good  measure 


446  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Such  is  the  career  of  piety  and  such  is  its  reward.  The 
children  of  Assaracus  the  Just  inherit  in  the  room  of  the 
Augustus  family  of  Has,  attainted  for  the  treason  of  Laome- 
ta  vi?rgu^f°rth  don.  The  pious  ^Eneas  recovers  the  patrimony 
^Eneas.  Qf  j^  grgt  ancestor  Dardanus,  deprived  by  vio- 

lence of  his  legitimate  rights.  And  thus,  too,  in  the  mind  of 
the  poet,  the  pious  Augustus  recovered  the  empire  of  his 
father  Julius,  slain  by  the  daggers  of  faction.  Urged  by  his 
patron  Apollo,  and  the  voice  of  many  oracles,  Augustus  had 
crossed  the  sea  to  the  promised  shore  of  Italy,  to  claim  his 
rightful  inheritance.  He,  too,  had  been  tost  for  many  years 
both  on  land  and  sea.  He  had  suffered  much  in  wars,  while 
laying  the  foundations  of  his  everlasting  polity.  He  had 
traversed  a  wider  realm  than  Hercules  or  Bacchus.1  He  had 
subdued  many  nations,  and  overthrown  many  cities.  With 
noble  constancy  and  firmness  he  bad  accomplished  the  divine 
designs ;  no  temptations  had  allured  him  from  the  path  of 
duty,  and  persuaded  him  to  found  his  state  on  any  foreign 
soil.  The  anxiety  of  the  Romans  about  the  often  rumoured 
translation  of  the  seat  of  empire,  whether  to  Hium  or  to 
Alexandria,  had  a  particular  significance.  They  expected 
that  the  victorious  triumvir  would  aspire  to  found  a  mon- 
archy, and  yet  they  clung  to  the  belief  that  no  king  could 
reign  at  Rome.  That  the  name  of  the  republic  would  be 
suffered  to  remain,  while  the  yoke  of  royal  rule  was  really 
fixed  upon  them,  was  beyond  their  power  to  conceive ;  ac- 
cordingly, they  were  convinced  that  he  meditated  establish- 
ing himself  with  his  army  in  some  Oriental  city,  and  govern- 
ing Rome  and  the  world  from  its  regal  acropolis.  His  long 
sojourns  in  the  East  kept  this  notion  constantly  alive ;  the 

from  my  recollection  of  some  interesting  essays  on  the  Roman  poets  by  a 
French  writer  named  Legris,  in  his  work  entitled  Home,  ou  Etudes  sur  JJiicrece, 
C'atullc,  Virgile,  et  Horace,  whose  ingenuity,  though  indulged  with  too  little 
restraint,  has  brought  out  in  very  striking  relief  the  ideas  and  sentiments  of 
the  period. 

vi.  802. : 

"  Nee,  vero  Alcides  tantum  telluris  obivit,  .... 
Xec  qui  pampineis  victor  juga  flectit  habenis  .  .  .  ." 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  4.4.7 

example  of  Antonius,  who  had  reigned  there  for  ten  years, 
of  Julius,  whose  half-revealed  design  was  nipped,  as  they  im- 
agined, in  the  bud,  and  the  common  passion  for  escaping 
from  the  duties  of  the  citizen  to  live  in  licentious  independ- 
ence abroad,  all  conspired  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the 
Romans  the  persuasion  that  Augustus  would  sacrifice  Rome 
to  a  foreign  capital.  The  Mneid.  may  be  read  as  a  continued 
protest  against  such  a  crime.  Nevertheless,  the  opinion  that 
Augustus  himself  is  specially  represented  by  its  hero  cannot 
be  admitted  without  great  reservation.  2Eneas,  ever  alarmed 
by  some  apparition,  always  led  by  soothsayers,  flitting  from 
oracle  to  oracle,  believing  in  dreams,  predictions,  days  and 
omens,  if  he  resembles  Augustus,  reflects  no  less  the  general 
type  of  the  slavish  superstition  of  the  time.  ^Eneas  weeping 
at  every  crisis  instead  of  acting,  may  suit  the  popular  notion 
of  the  triumvir,  whose  effeminacy  was  the  theme  of  many  a 
lampoon  ;  but  surely  the  poet  would  have  refrained  from  so 
far  pushing  his  parallel.  The  baseness  of  the  hero  in  desert- 
ing Dido,  and  his  slender  excuse  for  abandoning  the  search 
for  Creusa,  at  which  the  moral  sense  revolts,  whatever  reli- 
gious pretext  may  be  devised  for  them,  show  how  wanting 
Virgil  himself  was  in  delicacy ;  and  the  plain  injustice  of  the 
attack  on  Tumus  has  been  cited  in  proof  of  the  blunted  sen- 
sibility of  his  age. 

The  composition  of  the  ./Eneid  occupied  the  interval  be- 
tween 727  and  735,  the  year  of  the  poet's  death.  During 
this  period  Virgil  made  his  principal  residence  at  Melancholy  of 
Naples,  and  though  an  honoured  guest  at  the  Virsil- 
tables  of  the  great  at  Rome,  he  seems  to  have  easily  yielded 
the  post  of  court  favourite  to  rivals  of  a  gayer  and  perhaps 
of  a  more  supple  temper.  The  honour  his  writings  pay  to 
the  principle  of  religious  belief  was  certainly  not  assumed 
for  a  political  purpose.  But  with  a  temper  naturally  in- 
clined to  melancholy,  neither  the  objects  of  his  faith,  nor  the 
prospects  it  presented  to  him,  were  such  as  to  cheer  and  en- 
liven it.  After  describing  with  mournful  enthusiasm  the 
virtues  of  the  ancient  Romans,  it  was  impossible  even  for  a 


448  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

more  sanguine  Caesarean  than  Virgil  to  augur  a  revival  of 
those  simple  manners  which  were  to  him  the  pledges  of  hap- 
piness and  goodness.  His  view  of  the  progress  of  the  world 
was  the  reverse  of  the  Lucretian :  but  it  is  hard  to  say  which 
of  the  two  was  the  least  reasonable ;  that  of  the  believer, 
who  anticipates  under  the  sway  of  Providence  a  constant  de- 
cline of  happiness  and  virtue  ;  or  of  the  sceptic,  who,  casting 
man  on  his  own  unaided  energies,  expects  him  to  subdue  the 
evil  around  him  and  within  him,  and  to  grow  from  strength 
to  strength,  by  the  force  of  philosophy  and  culture.  Virgil, 
we  may  imagine,  in  his  retirement  began  already  to  see  the 
shades  closing  around  the  public  life  of  his  countrymen,  and 
feared  that  he  had  bestowed  on  the  idol  of  the  day  a  prema- 
ture and  excessive  adoration.  Possibly  he  repented  the 
course  he  had  taken,  the  flattery  to  which  he  had  pledged  his 
talents  and  consecrated  his  existence  ;  and  when  on  his  death- 
bed he  desired  that  his  unfinished  poem  should  be  destroyed, 
he  may  have  been  moved,  not  by  regret  at  its  imperfections, 
but  by  the  remorse  of  an  accusing  conscience.  His  last 
breath,  like  that  of  his  own  gallant  Turnus,  may  have  passed 
away  with  a  groan  of  indignation.  But  Augustus  knew  too 
well  the  political  value  of  the  JEneid  to  sacrifice  it  to  a  mor- 
bid sensibility.  He  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  Varius  and 
Plotius  for  the  necessary  correction,  but  strictly  charged 
them  to  make  no  additions,  nor  even  to  complete  the  few  un- 
finished lines  at  which  the  hand  of  the  master  had  paused  or 
faltered.1  Great,  undoubtedly,  is  the  debt  we  owe  him  for 
this  delicate  consideration.  The  Roman  epic  abounds  in 
moral  and  poetical  defects  :  nevertheless  it  remains  the  most 
complete  picture  of  the  national  mind  at  its  highest  elevation, 
the  most  precious  document  of  national  history,  if  the  history 
of  an  age  is  revealed  in  its  ideas,  no  less  than  in  its  events 
and  incidents.  This  is  the  consideration  which,  with  many 
of  us,  must  raise  the  interest  of  the  .JSneid  above  that  of  any 
other  poem  of  antiquity,  and  justify  the  saying  of  I  know  not 

1  Donat.  in  vil.  Virgil,  15. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  449 

what  Virgilian  enthusiast,  that  if  Homer  really  made  Virgil, 
undoubtedly  it  was  his  greatest  work. 

The  remark  of  an  ancient  biographer  that  there  was  a 
shade  of  rusticity  in  the  expression  of  Virgil's  countenance, 
has  been  amplified  by  later  critics ;  and  the  lines 

J  ,          Personal  ap- 

of  Horace,  describing  a  mend,  of  many  sterling  pearance  of 
qualities  indeed  and  of  fine  genius,  but  coarse  in 
figure,  moody  in  temper,  and  causing  a  smile  in  the  ranks  of 
fashion  by  the  carriage  of  his  gown,  the  cut  of  his  hair,  and 
the  fit  of  his  slipper,  have  been  applied  to  him  on  the  testi- 
mony of  an  early  scholiast.1  The  bashfulness  and  reserve 
which  have  been  attributed  to  the  poet  may  at  least  be  ac- 
cepted as  facts :  and  even  these  trifling  defects  of  manner 
might,  under  the  circumstances  of  society  at  Rome,  be 
deemed  worthy  of  remark  and  gentle  correction.  Under  the 
imperial  system,  which  sought  to  mould  all  men  to  a  common 
type  of  complacent  mediocrity,  the  apparition  of  a  single 
visitant  of  independent  thought  and  manners,  whose  honesty 
and  genius  condemned  the  creeping  servility  of  his  associates, 
could  not  fail  to  alarm  and  irritate.  In  a  company  whose 
festivity  depended  on  their  success  in  forgetting  themselves, 
and  who  disguised  their  own  littleness  by  mutual  applause, 
the  society  of  the  sacred  poet  might  be  felt  as  a  restraint,  and 
even  Augustus  and  Mascenas  may  have  breathed  more  freely 
when  relieved  from  it. 

We  must  not  fail,  indeed,  to  observe  how  the  emperor 
himself,  much  as  he  set  his  heart  on  the  high  moral  principles 
of  conservation  and  renewal,  much  as  he  had  on 

..      ..  u    .  3     j         .•  Ai        The  political 

his  lips  the  words,  religion  and  devotion,  tne  mission  of 
sanctity  of  marriage,  the  purity  of  the  life  philo- 
sophical, was  not  unwilling  to  encourage  by  his  countenance, 
and  even  by  his  example,  such  libertinage  and  dissipation  as 

1  Donatus,  vit.  Virgil,  5. ;  Acron.  in  Horat.  Sat,  i.  3,  30.,  foil. : 
"  Iracundior  est  paulo,  minus  aptus  acutis 
Naribus  horum  hominum  ....  at  ingenium  ingena 
luculto  latet  hoc  sub  corpore." 
Comp.  also  Sat.  i.  4,  35. 

VOL.  IT. — 29 


450  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

could  be  kept  within  certain  conventional  limits,  and  do  no 
violence  to  public  feeling.  Looking  back  for  a  moment  to  the 
age  of  Caesar,  and  to  Catullus,  who  holds  up  the  mirror  to  its 
sins,  we  shall  remark  how  Vice,  as  reflected  in  his  pages,  is 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  independence,  which 
has  not  yet  fled  from  the  atmosphere  of  Rome.  It  raises  its 
forehead  with  the  insolence  of  the  tyrant  aristocrats  born  to 
triumph  and  rule  mankind ;  it  walks  abroad,  shameless  and 
lusty,  gazing  and  to  be  gazed  at.  But  when  we  turn  to  view 
it  in  the  days  of  Augustus,  we  see  it  cowering  beneath  the 
control  of  a  master,  who  has  subjected  it  to  forms  and  regu- 
lations, removed  it  from  the  centre  to  the  side  of  the  street, 
from  the  forum  to  the  lanes  and  alleys,  and  constrained  it  to 
assume,  at  proper  times  and  places,  a  show  of  decency,  or 
even  a  pretence  of  virtue.  Rome  is  full  of  hypocrites,  who 
affect  gravity  and  austerity,  men  who  commit  every  excess  in 
private,  but  profess  in  public  the  sobriety  of  the  Curii  and  the 
Catos.1  Horace  himself,  who  is  charged  with  the  office  of 
chasing  the  truant  vices  back  to  their  covert,  knows  well  the 
limits  of  his  commission :  if  sin  appears  in  his  pictures  less 
coarse  and  naked  than  in  those  of  his  predecessor,  it  is  be- 
cause he  is  only  permitted  to  lift  a  corner  of  the  veil,  to  allure 
his  compatriots  to  indulgence,  but  not  to  disgust  them  by 
effrontery.11 

Examples  are  not  wanting  to  aid  us  in  conceiving  the 
effect  of  the  great  revolution  which  had  recently  been  accom- 
plished upon  the  social  deportment  of  the  Ro- 

Attempts  of        r  r         ,    .  r 

Augustus  to      mans.    The  regime  of  the  first  Napoleon  which 

correct  the  .  .  „,  -I-I-I.T 

deterioration  of  followed  the  extirpation  of  the  old  nobility,  and 

among  his         the  proscription  of  their  fashions,  was  marked  by 

vulgarity  and  rudeness,  by  a  careless  affectation 

of  indifference  to  the  manners  of  polite  society,  or  by  absurd 

1  Hor.  Epist.  i.  16,  57. : 

"  Vir  bonus,  omne  forum  quern  spectat  et  omne  tribunal  .  .  .  ." 

9  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  scandalous  anecdote  told  of  Horace's 
private  habits,  in  the  life  of  him  ascribed  to  Suetonius,  refers  to  another 
person. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  451 

attempts  to  imitate  them.  The  emperor  himself  had  no  tact 
for  such  conventionalities,  and  the  influence  of  his  consort 
was  at  best  ill-directed.  One  of  the  weak  points  of  his  gov- 
ernment was  the  handle  given  by  his  court  to  the  mockery  of 
the  frivolous  and  idle.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  good 
sense  of  Augustus  and  his  advisers  in  perceiving  the  disad- 
vantage to  which  his  system  was  subjected  by  the  folly  of 
the  classes  he  called  on  to  support  it.  To  form  or  correct  the 
habits  of  the  day  was  no  mean  part  of  the  policy  of  the 
founder  of  the  empire.  But  all  that  he  did  in  public  as  pre- 
fect of  manners,  all  his  regulations  for  the  conservation  of  re- 
ligious and  moral  principles,  were  of  far  less  importance 
towards  establishing  his  power  than  the  means  he  employed 
for  moulding  the  demeanour  of  the  citizens,  so  that  it  should 
obtain  general  respect,  and  trample  on  no  prejudices.  The 
aristocracy  of  birth  and  honours  had  been  almost  swept  away : 
it  was  necessary  to  replace  it ;  and  for  this  no  other  materials 
were  at  hand  but  the  clever  officials,  the  trusty  soldiers,  the 
astute  freedmen  of  noble  houses,  the  bankers,  usurers  and 
traders,  who,  in  waiting  upon  the  necessities  of  their  betters, 
had  taken  the  varnish  of  their  manners.  The  senate  of  Au- 
gustus was  in  short  an  assembly  of  plebeians,  but  of  plebeians 
more  vain  of  their  position  than  an  JEmilius  or  Valerius,  a 
Marcius  or  an  Hortensius  :  while  Gorgonius  was  boorish  and 
rude  even  to  affectation,  Rufillus  was  not  less  offensive,  from 
his  pretensions  to  excessive  refinement.1  These  men  were  to 
be  fashioned  to  the  mode,  first  by  tailors  and  perruquiers, 
and  next  by  the  parasite  or  poet  of  the  court,  the  master  of 
ceremonies  to  the  emperor,  or  rather,  that  his  own  influence 
might  be  less  apparent,  to  his  minister  and  confidant.  They 
were  to  be  taught  not  only  to  wear  their  toga  decorously, 
but  to  bear  themselves  politely  at  the  table,  or  at  the  theatre 
and  circus.  If  Domitius  Marsus,  a  favourite  writer  of  the 
day,  devoted  a  treatise  to  instruction  in  urbanity,  or  the 
graces  of  town  conversation,  the  whole  philosophy  of  good 

1  Hor.  Sat.  i.  4,  92. : 

"  Pastillum  Rufillus  olet,  Gorgonius  hircum." 


452  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

breeding  was  reviewed  by  Horace  in  the  poetical  discourses, 
to  which  he  gave  the  old  Roman  name  of  Satires  or  Medleys.1 
The  part  Horace  had  taken  in  the  civil  wars,  to  which  a 
boyish  enthusiasm  had  impelled  him,  was  soon  over.  After 
career  of  Philippi,  his  first  and  only  field,  he  abjured  the 
Horace.  service  of  liberty,  and  finding  his  way  almost 

friendless  to  Rome,  began  writing  verses  and  making  himself 
a  name,  while  solicitous  only  for  his  daily  bread.  Careless 
and  incorrect  as  his  first  pieces  are,  sometimes  vapid  in  sense 
and  ill-conditioned  in  their  object,  there  were  not  wanting 
among  them  some  of  a  better  character,  fitted  to  impress  a 
sagacious  reader  with  a  high  idea  of  his  genius.  Virgil  is 
said  in  the  popular  tradition  to  have  been  the  first  to  make 
the  discovery,  and  to  have  introduced  Horace  in  all  simplicity 
to  Maecenas  as  a  man  of  poetical  promise.  But  this,  however 
he  might  affect  to  patronize  literature  for  its  own  sake,  was 
not  all  the  minister  required ;  and  for  some  time,  a  few  cour- 
teous words  were  all  the  notice  he  thought  fit  to  take  of  his 
new  acquaintance.  But  Horace  improved  his  own  fortunes. 
He  continued  to  write  with  more  earnestness,  and  in  a  tone 
of  greater  self-respect ;  he  mingled  with  his  compositions 
compliments  to  the  minister  so  delicate  that  neither  could  be 
ashamed  of  them.  He  acquired  the  great  man's  friendship, 
and  was  received  gradually  into  closer  intimacy  and  even 
confidence.  But  we  know  not  how  far  this  confidence  really 
went.  The  citizens  doubtless  surmised  that  it 
his  connexion  extended  to  public  afiairs,  and  that  Horace  was 
and  Msec*"8  UB  consulted  by  Maecenas  on  the  disposal  of  his  pa- 
tronage, or  the  assignment  of  colonial  territories. 
It  was  the  business  of  the  poet  to  laugh  away  these  conjec- 
tures, possibly  to  put  the  guessers  on  a  wrong  scent,  and  rep- 
resent himself  as  totally  unconnected  with  politics,  absolute- 

1  Quintilian  (Inst.  Oral.  yi.  3,  102.)  speaks  of  such  a  treatise  by  Domitius 
Marsus,  a  poet  of  the  Augustan  age  :  "  Qui  de  urbanitate  diligentissime  scrip- 
sit."  But  the  urbanitas  of  Marsus  is  rather  pleasantry  than  politeness.  "  TJr- 
banitas  est  virtus  qusedam  in  breve  dictum  coacta  et  apta  ad  delectandos 
movendosque  homines,"  &c. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  453 

ly  devoid  of  ambition,  satisfied  with  the  smallest  favours,  a 
sincere,  independent  friend  of  the  minister,  and  even  of  the 
emperor  himself.  Certain  it  is  that  Horace,  however  strict 
may  have  been  the  attachment  between  himself  and  the  men 
in  power,  obtained  neither  riches  nor  office.  He  was  grati- 
fied with  the  present  of  a  moderate  estate,  the  Sabine  farm, 
of  which  he  sings  with  such  pleasing  animation ;  and  profess- 
ing himself  simple  in  his  tastes,  with  few  wants,  being  un- 
married, and  apparently  without  kinsmen,  he  was  satisfied 
with  the  golden  mean  of  fortune  which  entailed  on  him 
neither  trouble  nor  anxiety.1  To  the  Roman,  whose  pleas- 
ures and  amusements  were  mostly  public,  and  who  might 
satiate  every  lawful  taste  with  the  libraries,  the  baths,  the 
shows,  and  the  galleries  of  the  great  city,  the  want  of  large 
personal  means  brought  no  sensible  deprivations.  It  was  the 
policy  of  Augustus  to  curtail  the  excessive  affluence  of  the 
few,  and  make  the  masses  dependent  for  their  enjoyments  on 
the  government  itself.  It  was  doihg  him  good  service  there- 
fore to  expose  to  scorn  or  ridicule  the  men  who  made  a 
parade  of  their  wealth,  or  betrayed  anxiety  to  amass  it ;  to 
sing  the  praise  of  simplicity  and  indifference,  and  contrast 
with  the  smoke,  the  noise  and  splendour  of  Rome,  the  lan- 
guid indolence  of  mid-day  slumbers  in  the  meadow.4  At  the 
same  time,  the  jealousy  of  the  new  nobility  might  demand 
some  consolation  from  their  patrons  for  the  mortification  they 
experienced  at  the  sneers  of  the  survivors  of  the  true  aristoc- 
racy. For  them  Horace  had  a  salve  in  his  specious  dispar- 
agement of  illustrious  parentage,  and  descent  from  genera- 
tions of  official  notabilities.3  But  whether  he  rebukes  the 

1  Eplst.  ii.  2,  159. :  "  Qui  te  pascit  ager  tuus  est." 

2  Compare  Horace's  sneers  at  the  "  Fumum  et  opes  strepitumque  Romae," 
&c.,  with  the  conclusion  of  Virgil's  second  Georgic — the  "  Quid  bellicosus 
Cantaber  et  Scythes,"  of  the  one,  &c.,  with  the  "  Non  res  Romans  peritura- 
que  regna,"  or  the   "  Conjurato  descendens  Dacus  ab  Istro,"  of  the  other. 
Surely  both  drew  their  inspiration  from  the  same  official  source. 

3  Hor.  Sat.  i.  6,  fin. : 

"  His  me  consolor  victurum  suavius,  ac  si 
Quaestor  avus,  pater  atque  meus,  patruusque  fuisset." 


454:  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

vain,  or  ministers  comfort  to  wounded  susceptibility,  he 
knows  the  art  of  sweetening  his  potions  by  his  tone  of  good- 
humoured  levity  and  banter.  Angry  passions,  he  suggests, 
have  been  excited  more  than  enough  ;  it  is  time  to  allay  irri- 
tation, to  relieve  men  of  their  fears,  to  surround  the  throne 
with  cheerful  countenances ;  to  let  all  men  know  each  other's 
weaknesses,  and  rely  upon  mutual  indulgence.  The  genial 
magician  who  shall  thus  transform  society  must  have  special 
qualifications  for  a  task  so  delicate.  He  must  be  of  no  family 
illustration  himself,  to  make  the  new  men  jealous ;  he  must 
be  a  man  of  courtly  manners,  to  satisfy  the  taste  of  the  re- 
fined ;  he  must  dress  with  faultless  neatness  rather  than 
elegance,  trim  his  hair  and  beard  carefully  but  not  fantasti- 
cally, .have  a  tender  indulgence  for  the  vices  of  good  com- 
pany, and  if  his  own  stomach  is  too  weak  for  an  occasional 
excess,  he  must  sit  through  the  festive  meetings  of  his  com- 
panions, and  enjoy  at  least  their  enjoyment.1  He  must  be 
fond  of  music  and  poetry ;  and  if  he  is  able  to  entertain 
others  with  his  wit,  if,  above  all,  he  can  strike  the  lyre  to 
notes  of  genial  harmony  himself,  he  will  become  the  soul  of 
fellowship,  the  emperor's  viceroy  in  the  realms  of  fashion. 
He  must  be  able  to  invest  ordinary  ideas  with  elegant  lan- 
guage, and  appeal  to  educated  mediocrity  by  sentiments  level 
with  its  understanding ;  and  then,  if  he  can  sometimes  take 
a  higher  flight,  and  utter  bursts  of  inspiration,  solemn,  pas- 
sionate, and  tender,  if  he  can  assume  an  enthusiasm  worthy 
of  a  Roman  freeman  or  a  Grecian  bard,  and  emulate  the  fire 
of  Pindar  with  the  steady  glow  of  a  sustained  dignity,  he 
will  combine  the  voices  of  the  generous  and  the  vulgar,  of 

1  Accordingly  Augustus,  we  are  told,  used  to  call  him  homuncionem  lepi- 
disnimum.  Suet.  vit.  Hor.  Some  pleasing  fragments  of  the  emperor's  letters 
to  the  poet  are  given  in  this  biography,  and  may  not  improbably  be  genuine. 
Horace  says  of  himself: 

"  Quern  tenues  decuere  comae,  uitidique  capilli ; 
Quern  scis  immunem  Cinarae  placuisse  rapaci ; 
Quern  bibulum  liquidi  media  de  nocte  Falerni 
Ccena  jurat." 

Epist.  i.  14,  32.     Comp.  i.  7,  26. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  455 

the  future  and  of  the  present,  and  become  a  fixed  star  in  the 
heaven  of  poetry. 

A  further  task  remains,  however,  for  the  favoured  instru- 
ment of  ministerial  conservatism.  Horace  must  teach  the 
Roman  gentlemen  to  be  religious,  or  at  least  to  Horace's  pre- 
appear  so.  Horace  was  himself,  so  he  seems  to  reUgiouVsenti- 
confess,  something  of  a  scapegrace  in  his  youth :  ment 
one  who  could  be  so  wrong  and  foolish  as  to  embrace  the 
cause  of  the  murderers  of  the  divine  Julius,  must  have  imbibed 
some  very  false  notions  from  the  sources  of  his  philosophy. 
He  had  dallied  with  the  Greek  ideologists,  the  corrupters  of 
youth,  in  the  schools  of  Athens ;  he  had  fancied  himself  a 
disciple  of  Epicurus :  child  as  he  was,  he  had  affected  to  re- 
nounce allegiance  to  all  sound  principles  of  religion  as  well  as 
of  politics.  Under  the  change  of  his  fortunes  he  has  had  the 
grace  to  repent ;  he  has  become  devout ;  he  wishes  his  coun- 
trymen to  know  how  highly  he  now  thinks  of  Jupiter  and 
Apollo,  no  less  than  of  Augustus  and  Maecenas.  A  man  of 
ardent  imagination  and  of  delicate  sensibility,  a  man  who 
questioned  the  world  and  his  own  conscience  both  solemnly 
and  sternly, — such  a  man  as  Virgil,  for  instance, — might  well 
persuade  himself  that  the  miseries  he  had  witnessed  attested 
the  mortal  sin  of  renouncing  the  worship  of  the  Gods,  and 
compassing  the  destruction  of  their  hero ;  but  Horace  has  no 
such  claim  on  our  indulgent  interpretation,  and  the  palinodes 
of  his  lyric  muse  ring  false  to  an  attentive  ear.1 

It  can  hardly  be  mere  accident  that  the  pieces  in  which 

1  Horace  is  indiscreet  in  assigning  the  motives  of  his  conversion,  which 
have  caused  much  perplexity  to  the  critics  who  wished  to  believe  him  in  ear- 
nest. Od.  i.  34 : 

"  Parcus  Deorum  cultor  et  infrequens  .... 

Namque  Diespiter 

Igni  corusco  nubila  dividens 
Plerumque,  per  sudum  tonantes 

Egit  equos." 

Compare  i.  22. :  "  Namque  me  sylva  lupus  in  Sabina  .  .  .  ." 
ii.  17. :  "  Me  truncus  illapsus  cerebro  .  .  .  ." 
iii.  4. :  "  Non  sine  Dis  animosus  infans." 


456  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

this  subtle  moralist    inculcates    temperance  and  sobriety  of 
thought  and  action,  which  denounce  the  vanity 

Horace  em-  '     .  . 

ployed  to          of  ambition  and  the  cares  01  greatness,  are  ad- 
recommend        _          _  .       .  /.   , 
moderation  and  dressed  in  almost  every  case  to  scions  oi  the  no- 

the  resuess  °  blest  and  proudest  houses.  Such  is  the  character 
of  the  odes  to  Lollius  and  Licinius,  to  Torquatus 
and  Quinctius,  to  Postumus  and  Dellius,  Antonius,  Pompeius, 
and  Plancus.1  When  we  remember  that  these  men  were  pre- 
cisely of  the  class  to  which  the  regards  of  Augustus  and  his 
minister  were  most  jealously  directed,  such  a  concurrence  of 
similar  warnings,  repeated  to  more  than  satiety,  seems  to  ad- 
mit of  only  one  explanation.  The  minion  of  the  usurping 
dynasty  would  not  have  been  countenanced  in  such  frequent 
and  familiar  addresses  to  men  whose  restless  ambition,  whose 
exalted  birth  and  ample  means  made  them  formidable  to  the 
court,  more  than  one  of  whom  had  been  found  in  open  or 
secret  array  against  it,  unless  on  condition  of  exerting  his  in- 
fluence to  curb  their  impatience,  and  chastise  their  illicit  as- 
pirations.2 Horace  resounds  the  praises  of  Italy  in  strains  not 
dissimilar  to  those  of  Virgil ;  and  we  are  again  reminded,  by 
his  fervid  encomiums  on  the  beauties  of  that  sacred  soil,  of 
the  anxiety  of  his  master  to  recall  the  truant  spirits  of  his 
subjects  from  the  charms  of  Greece  and  Asia  to  the  post  of 
piety  and  duty.* 

We  cannot,  perhaps,  easily  exaggerate  the  influence  which 
the  cheerful  subservience  of  the  Horatian  muse  exerted  upon 


1  Comp.  Epist.  i.  6. :  To  Numicius :  "Nil  admirari  .  .  .  ."  We  have 
met  with  several  of  these  names  ranged  on  the  side  of  the  senate  against 
Caesar,  or  of  the  Eastern  against  the  Western  triumvir. 

*  Legris  ventures  to  explain  the  perplexing  ode  to  Plancus  (Od.  i.  T.),  with 
its  preference  of  Tiber  and  the  Anio  over  Argos  and  Larissa,  as  a  covert  invi- 
tation to  renounce  the  service  of  the  tyrant  of  the  East,  and  join  the  defender 
of  his  native  land.     It  is  difficult  to  see  why  a  poet  should  make  any  mystery 
of  such  an  object     Yet  the  well-known  political  poem  (Epod.  16.:  "Altera 
jam  teritur  "),    bears  considerable  analogy  to  this,  and  other  odes  of  Horace 
have  unquestionably  a  covert  allusion  to  the  state  of  public  affairs. 

*  Compare,  also,  Propert.  iii.  22. : 

"  Omnia  Romanae  cedent  miracula  terra,"  &c. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 
patriots  willing  to  be  persuaded,  and  pleased  to 

Dissatisfaction 

have  then*  weakness  gilded  with  the  names  ot  of  Horace  in 

°  TT  ..his  later  years. 

good  sense  and  philosophy.  Horace  was  reward- 
ed, if  not  splendidly,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  his  desires :  he 
enjoyed  ease,  reputation,  the  fellowship  of  the  good  and 
witty ;  he  who  had  commenced  life  in  search  of  a  patron, 
finished  it  as  the  observed  of  all  observers.  Yet  it  may  be 
true  that  the  attainment  of  every  wish  left  him  despondent 
and  dissatisfied  with  himself.  If  I  rightly  understand  the 
chronology  of  his  compositions,  those  which  seem  to  be 
among  the  latest  betray  a  spirit  of  mortification,  rather  than 
the  cheerfulness  to  which  he  at  least  pretended  in  his  earlier 
years.1  He  now  longs  for  retirement ;  he  seeks  to  be  released 
from  servitude ;  he  seems  even  ashamed  of  his  success  in 
seconding  the  policy  of  his  masters.  He  quits  the  thorny 
path  of  politics,  and  the  transparent  shades  of  his  assumed 
philosophy,  and  sickens  at  last  over  the  long-abused  refrain 
of  all  his  poetry,  that  wisdom  is  better  than  wealth  and  hon- 
ours, liberty  and  beauty,  acknowledging  with  a  bitter  smile 
that  contentment  depends  more  on  the  digestion  than  the  finest 
precepts  of  the  schools.3  Finally,  he  amuses  himself  with 
meditation  on  literature,  and  the  innocent  recreations  of  ab- 
stract criticism.  The  Art  of  Poetry  is  a  curious,  perhaps  we 
may  say  an  instructive,  euthanasia  to  the  fervid  exaltation  of 
his  youth,  and  the  decorous  accommodation  of  his  maturer 
years.3 

1  Compare,  for  instance,  Hor.  Epist.  \.  1,  2,  7,  8,  10. :  "  Non  eadem  est 
aetas  non  mens — Solve  senescentem — Sic  mihi  tarda  fluunt  ingrataque  tempora — 
Sapere  aude,  Incipe — Quod  si  me  noles  unquam  discedere — Mihi  jam  non  re- 
gia  Roma — Vivere  nee  pulchre  nee  suaviter — Mente  minus  validus  quam  cor- 
pore — Vivo  et  regno  simul  ista  reliqui." 

*  Hor.  Eplst.  i.  1,  fin. : 

"  Ad  summum  sapiens  uno  minor  est  Jove,  dives, 
Liber,  honoratus,  pulcher,  rer  denique  regum, 
Prcecipue  sanus,  nisi  cum  pituita  molesta  est." 

3  The  commentators  have  found  a  golden  key  to  the  chronology  of  Horace's 
writings  in  the  lines  which  terminate  his  address  to  the  first  book  of  the  Epis- 
tles: 


458  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

A  dissertation  has  been  written  to  show  that  the  disagree- 
able acquaintance  whom  Horace  sought  in  vain  to  shake  off 
in  the  Via  Sacra  was  no  other  than  the  poet  Pro- 

Propertius.  .  »      «      «       «*  i  • 

pertms.  The  hypothesis,  ianciiul  as  it  seems,  is 
not  altogether  devoid  of  probability ;  but  whether  it  be  cor- 
rect or  not,  there  is  undoubtedly  something  in  the  character 
of  Propertius,  as  we  trace  it  in  his  writings,  which  harmonizes 
with  such  an  estimate  of  him.  While  the  favour  of  the 
rulers  of  the  commonwealth  was  showered  upon  Virgil  and 
Horace,  Varius  and  Plotius,  recommended  by  the  eminence  of- 
their  commanding  genius,  or  the  exquisiteness  of  their  tact, 
there  were  doubtless  other  men,  of  considerable  pretensions 
to  literary  talent,  who  sought  a  share  in  their  distinctions, 

"  Forte  meum  si  te  quis  percontabitur  aevum, 
Me  quater  undenos  sciat  implevisse  Decembres, 
Collegam  Lepidum  quo  duxit  Lollius  anno." 

This  consulship  was  A.TJ.  733.  But  this  allusion  proves  nothing  except  of 
course  that  the  book  was  not  published  earlier  than  that  date.  There  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  have  been  sent  forth  some  years  later ;  and  such  I 
believe,  from  the  evidence  both  of  style  and  matter,  was  really  the  case.  The 
Epodes,  most  of  which  were  among  the  writer's  earliest  compositions,  which 
were  circulated,  like  his  other  pieces,  from  hand  to  hand  long  before  they 
were  collected  into  a  volume,  breathe  the  freshness  and  independence,  to- 
gether with  the  inaccuracy,  of  youth.  The  two  books  of  Satires  and  the  first 
three  of  Odes  were  composed  probably  together  during  a  series  of  years,  and 
belong  to  the  period  in  which  Horace  was  actively  employed  in  the  service  of 
his  patrons.  The  last  book  of  Odes,  we  are  told,  was  published  at  the  express 
desire  of  Augustus,  and  the  few  pieces  it  contains  were  probably  strung  to- 
gether as  a  vehicle  for  the  exhibition  of  the  fine  poems  in  praise  of  the  impe- 
rial family.  But  in  the  first  book  of  the  Epistles  we  find  the  poet  complaining 
that  he  has  no  longer  the  spirit  for  composition  ("  Non  eadem  est  aetas  non 
mens  "),  and  parrying  the  solicitations  of  Maecenas  to  resume  the  task.  He 
shows  an  inclination  to  withdraw  from  political  service :  he  complains  of  him- 
self and  of  the  world.  Finally,  the  three  long  pieces  which  conclude  the  col- 
lection are  evidently  the  work  of  a  single  period,  when  he  had  at  last  succeed- 
ed in  throwing  off  the  yoke  of  servitude,  and  could  indulge  himself,  and  per- 
haps seek  forgetfulness,  in  polished  and  sensible,  but  not  very  profound  nor 
very  careful,  remarks  on  the  literary  taste  of  his  day.  Horace  was  born  in 
689,  and  died  in  746,  within  a  few  days  perhaps  of  Maecenas,  but  later,  if  we 
may  believe  the  story  that  the  dying  minister  recommended  him  to  Augustus 
with  the  words,  "Horatii  Flacci  ut  mei  memor  esto."  Suet,  in  vit.  Hor. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  459 

and  were  eager  to  barter  the  incense  they  could  offer  for  the 
smiles  and  sunshine  of  the  court.  Among  these,  none  perhaps 
was  more  distinguished  than  Propertius ;  yet  in  the  race  of 
favour  he  seems  to  have  fallen  far  behind  his  more  fortunate 
rivals.  He  started,  indeed,  in  early  life  from  the  same  com- 
mon goal  with  them,  being  introduced  to  the  notice  of 
Maecenas  as  a  victim  of  the  revolution.  His  abilities  gave 
ample  promise ;  and  he  qualified  himself  for  the  minister's 
consideration  by  the  zeal  with  which  he  sought  to  gild  with 
all  the  ornaments  of  verse  the  false  idols  of  the  day,  in  making 
vice  and  voluptuousness  graceful,  in  singing  in  sounding  verse 
the  legends  of  Roman  mythology,  and  in  praising  to  the  skies 
the  glories  of  Augustus,  and  the  virtues  of  his  trusty  counsel- 
lor. But  on  all  these  topics,  similar  as  they  are  to  those 
which  Horace  has  so  delicately  recommended  to  us,  we  feel 
sensibly  the  inferior  powers  of  his  less  successful  competitor. 
Propertius  is  deficient  in  that  light  touch  and  exquisitely 
polished  taste  which  volatilize  the  sensuality  and  flattery  of 
Horace.  The  playfulness  of  the  Sabine  bard  is  that  of  the 
lapdog,  while  the  Umbrian  reminds  us  of  the  pranks  of  a 
clumsier  and  less  tolerated  quadruped.1  Amidst  all  his  affect- 
ed indifference,  the  art  of  Maecenas  must  have  been  constantly 
exercised  in  keeping  importunate  suitors  at  a  distance.  The 
assiduity  of  Propertius  was  perhaps  too  officious,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  repel  without  offending  him.  Like  all  his  unfor- 
tunate class,  he  could  not  understand  how,  with  undoubted 
talents  and  acknowledged  industry,  his  pursuit  of  the  great 
was  through  life  a  failure,  while  that  of  his  rivals,  who  seemed 
so  much  less  eager  in  it,  was  crowned  with  such  distinguished 
rewards.  Nevertheless,  this  disappointment  was  not  wholly 
merited.  Although  Propertius  is  often  frigid  and  pedantic 
in  his  sentiments,  though  he  takes  his  learning  from  diction- 
aries and  his  gallantry  from  romances,  and  retails  at  second 
hand  the  flattery  of  his  contemporaries,  there  is  notwithstand- 
ing a  strength,  and  sometimes  a  grandeur  in  his  language, 
which  would  have  been  more  highly  relished  in  the  sterner 
1  Propert.  iv.  1,  64. :  "  Umbria  Romani  patria  Callimacbi." 


460  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

age  of  Lucretius.  His  rustic  muse,  though  brought  as  a  -will- 
ing captive  to  the  tables  of  the  great  at  Rome,  seems  some- 
times to  break  her  silken  fetters,  and  bound  along  in  the 
•wilder  measures  of  her  native  mountains.  Propertius  stands 
alone  among  the  Roman  poets  in  the  force  and  fervour  he  im- 
parts to  elegiac  verse :  he  alone  raises  the  soft  and  languid 
pentameter  to  the  dignity  of  its  heroic  consort.1  But  it  is  in 
the  weight  of  single  lines,  and  the  manly  savour  of  occasional 
expressions,  that  the  charm  of  this  writer  is  to  be  found :  he 
has  none  of  the  form  of  poetical  invention,  and  is  alike  defi- 
cient in  sustained  majesty,  in  natural  grace,  and  in  flowing 
rhythm. 

A  contemporary  of  Propertius,  and  also  a  writer  of  elegiac 
poetry,  is  Albius  Tibullus,  the  sweetness  of  whose  versifica- 
tion, deficient  though  it  is  both  in  variety  and 

Tibnllns.  .  J 

strength,  is  remarkable  at  least  from  the  early 
period  to  which  it  belongs.  But  Tibullus  deserves  our  con- 
sideration on  a  more  important  ground,  for  the  singular  inde- 
pendence of  character  he  exhibits  in  relation  to  the  court  of 
Augustus.  Like  so  many  of  his  most  distinguished  contem- 
poraries, he  had  been  dispossessed  of  his  estates  at  Pedum, 
near  Prseneste,  by  the  soldiers  of  Octavius  ;  but  he  too,  like 
them,  had  the  fortune  to  recover  his  patrimony,  at  least  in 
part,  and  this  probably  through  the  good  offices  of  Messala. 
To  Messala  accordingly,  as  his  patron,  he  attached  himself 
through  life,  following  him  throughout  his  campaigns  in  Aqui- 
tania,  and  sharing  the  glory  and  merits  of  his  success.  Ti- 
bullus sings  of  this  distant  warfare  with  more  than  usual  ani- 
mation, though  generally  he  expresses  a  poet's  aversion  to 
the  toils  of  military  life :  nevertheless  the  heroic  poem,  spe- 

1  As  for  instance  in  the  lines : 

iiL     7,  56. :  "  Cum  moribunda  niger  clauderet  ora  liquor." 
iiL  11,  56. :  "Jura  dare  et  statuas  inter  et  anna  MarL" 
iv.     6,  42. :  "  Imposuit  prorae  publica  vota  tuae." 
iv.  11,  46. :  "  Viximus  insignes  inter  utramque  facem." 

Rurilius,  in  the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  is  the  only  writer  who  deserves  to 

be  compared  hi  this  respect  with  Propertius. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE. 

cially  dedicated  to  the  praise  of  Messala,  which  passes  under 
his  name,  can  perhaps  hardly  be  ascribed  to  him.  The  most 
virtuous  of  the  Roman  nobles  seems  to  have  exacted  no  un- 
worthy compliances  of  his  grateful  client.  Messala,  it  would 
appear,  was  himself  surrounded,  like  Maecenas  or  Agrippa, 
with  a  retinue  of  versifiers  as  well  as  of  warriors,  and  kept  a 
mimic  court  of  his  own,  as  a  chief  of  the  ancient  aristocracy. 
Certain  it  is  that  Tibullus  refrained  from  all  flattery  of  the 
rival  following  of  Octavius.  Throughout  his  works  there  is 
no  mention  made  either  of  Augustus  or  of  his  ministers  and 
associates.  Yet  the  imperial  court,  on  its  part,  was  not  indis- 
posed to  flatter  and  solicit  him.  Horace  addressed  him  more 
than  once  in  kindly  and  complimentary  strains,  which  seem 
to  invite  him  to  enrol  himself  also  in  the  cohort  of  the  bards 
of  the  empire.1  If  such  was  Horace's  view,  it  would  appear 
that  he  was  wholly  unsuccessful.  The  muse  of  Tibullus,  con- 
stant to  its  chosen  theme,  was  devoted  to  singing  his  general- 
ly unprosperous  loves ;  yet  the  tone  of  tender  melancholy 
which  pervades  its  elegies  may  have  had  a  deeper  and  purer 
source  than  the  caprices  of  three  inconstant  paramours.  The 
spirit  of  Tibullus  is  eminently  religious ;  but  his  religion  bids 
him  fold  his  hands  in  resignation  rather  than  open  them  in 
hope  :"  there  is  something  soothing  at  least  in  the  idea  that 
he  alone  of  the  great  poets  of  his  day  remained  undazzled  by 
the  glitter  of  the  Caesarean  usurpation,  and  pined  away  in  un- 
availing despondency  in  beholding  the  subjugation  of  his 
country.8 

,  Virgil  and  Horace  may  have  had,  besides  the  common 
throng  of  admirers,  the  audience  fit,  though  few,  of  some  soli- 
tary students ;  but  Ovid  is  "eminently  the  poet  of 
society,  and  the  various  styles  of  composition  in 

1  Hor.  Od.  i.  23. ;  Epist.  i.  4. 

*  "Ccelo  supinas  si  tuleris  manus."     For  the  indications  of  this  religious 
spirit,  see  particularly  i.  1,  37.,  ii.  80.,  iii.  57.,  and  Ovid,  Amor.  iii.  9,  37. 

*  See  some  remarks  on  Tibullus  in  Legris's  second  volume.    Tibullus  died 
young,  according  to  the  epigram  ascribed  to  Marsus : 

"  Te  quoque  Virgilio  comitem  non  sequa,  Tibulle, 
More  juvenem  campos  misit  ad  Elysios." 


462  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

which  he  excelled,  disclose  to  us  the  tastes  and  interests  of 
the  day,  and  reflect  the  tone  of  ordinary  sentiment  in  the 
higher  ranks  of  the  capital.  Fatigued  as  they  were  with  the 
unbending  exaltation  of  the  epic  and  the  lyric,  the  Elegies 
and  Art  of  Love  attracted  and  delighted  them  as  the  repre- 
sentation, but  slightly  disguised  or  idealized,  of  actual  man- 
an  imitator  of  ners  an<i  habits.  Ovid  was  the  successor  in  elegy 
Parthenine.  of  propertius  and  Tibullus,  of  Gallus  and  Mar- 
sus ;  but  it  is  probable  that  all  these  writers  drew  from  the 
common  fountain  of  Grecian  inspiration,  and  even  from  the 
effusions  of  a  single  author,  Parthenius.  Born  at  Nicaa  and 
carried  captive  as  a  child  to  Rome  in  the  wars  of  Mithri- 
dates,  the  talents  of  Parthenius,  and  his  powers  of  pleasing, 
had  obtained  him  freedom  and  reception  among  the  highest 
circles.  He  was  the  author  of  erotic  elegies  in  verse,  some  of 
them  lively  and  joyous,  others  of  a  funereal  strain.  Among 
the  first  of  his  disciples  were  Gallus  and*  Virgil,  and  some 
lines  of  the  Georgics,  it  is  said,  were  fashioned  directly  upon 
his  models.  Tiberius  Caesar,  who  affected  himself  to  compose 
Greek  verses,  had  such  admiration  for  this  poet,  that  he 
caused  his  bust  and  writings  to  be  placed  in  the  public  libra- 
ries among  the  most  famous  notabilities  of  his  nation.  His 
influence  may  be  traced  in  the  Heroids  of  Ovid, 

The  Heroic.  J 

in  which  the  most  tragic  love-stones  of  ancient 
legend  are  versified  under  the  form  of  epistles,  and  which 
seem  to  have  been  founded  on  the  summaries  Parthenius  had 
specially  drawn  up  for  the  use  of  Cornelius  Gallus.1  But  how- 
ever elegant  the  Grecian  may  have  been  in  his  style,  or  copi- 
ous in  the  flow  of  his  language,  it  was  doubtless  to  his  train- 
ing in  the  schools  of  the  rhetoricians  that  Ovid  owed  the  won- 
derful variety  he  has  been  able  to  introduce  into  a  set  of  sub- 
jects so  similar  in  character,  in  which  the  universal  passion, 
deserted  or  unsuccessful,  is  made  to  breathe  from  the  mouths 
of  Sappho  or  CEnone,  Ariadne  or  Medea.  If  the  poet  has 
failed  to  catch  the  simplicity  of  the  best  heroic  models,  he  has 

1  See  Walckenaer's  Histoire  cTHorace,  ii.  197.,  from  Suidas  in  TOC.  Gel- 
lius.  ix.  9.,  xiii.  26. ;  Suet.  Tiber.  70. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  4.53 

at  least  imbibed  a  portion  of  their  purity  and  depth  of  feeling. 
The  Loves  of  the  Heroines  is  the  most  elevated  and  refined 
in  sentiment  of  all  elegiac  compositions  of  the  Romans.  If 
we  may  argue  back  from  Ovid  to  Parthenius,  the  marked  pre- 
dilection of  Tiberius  for  the  Grecian  poetaster  will  appear 
not  discreditable  to  that  prince's  taste  and  feeling. 

It  is  possible  that  the  same  author  suggested  to  Ovid  the 
idea  of  his  extraordinary  poem  on  the  Metamorphoses,  or 
Transformations,  of  Greek  and  Roman  mytholo-  The  Metamor- 
gy,  in  which  the  wealth  of  his  fancy  is  displayed  PhoBes- 
still  more  abundantly,  and  is  at  times  combined  with  an  epic 
majesty  of  diction.  Its  structure  betrays  at  once  the  occa- 
sions for  which  it  was  written ;  for  the  slender  thread  of  con- 
nexion which  runs  through  it  is  unable  to  sustain  any  con- 
tinued interest,  while  the  repetition  of  similar  incidents,  how- 
ever ingeniously  varied  in  relation,  would  become  inexpressi- 
bly wearisome  in  a  continuous  perusal.  But  viewed  as  a 
series  of  sketches  intended  for  successive  recitation  to  the 
same,  and  often  to  different  audiences,  the  Metamorphoses  is 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  author's  object.  The  work  rolls  on 
in  an  uniform  line,  without  a  catastrophe  or  a  climax,  to  its 
chronological  termination :  yet  the  Romans  may  have  drawn 
a  political  moral  from  the  philosophy  of  Pythagoras  in  the 
concluding  book,  which  taught  that  all  things  change,  but 
nothing  perishes  ;  and  may  have  felt  that  the  transformation 
of  the  republic  into  an  empire  was  no  more  than  a  crowning 
illustration  of  the  ruling  principle  of  the  work.1 

The  Fasti  assumes  a  character  of  considerable  impor- 
tance when  we  regard  Ovid,  not  as  a  poet  giving  utterance  to 
his  own  enthusiasm,  but  as  the  fashionable  author 

The  Fasti. 

addressing  himself  always  to  the  current  taste  or 
interest  of  society.    The  work  which  goes  under  that  name 
may  be  described  as  the  pontifical  ritual  in  verse :  it  gives 
the  rationale  of  the  calendar,  and  of  the  stated  observances 
of  the  national  religion :  it  digests   the  Seasons    and   the 

1  Ovid,  Metam,  xv.  165. :   "  Omnia  mutantur,  nihil  intent." 


464  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Reasons  of  every  special  cult  and  ceremony.1  Such  a  work, 
it  would  appear,  must  have  been  calculated  to  meet  a  popular 
demand.  The  Roman  people  required  an  explanation,  in  the 
courtly  and  graceful  style  to  which  alone  they  would  listen, 
of  the  usages  to  which  they  had  solemnly  devoted  them- 
selves. "With  these  fair  and  sounding  verses  the  poet  satis- 
fied the  ecclesiastical  spirit  of  the  times,  which  leant  with 
fond  reliance  on  forms  and  traditions,  and  was  less  a  thing  to 
be  felt  than  to  be  talked  about.  From  the  appearance  of 
such  a  work,  we  may  feel  assured  that  the  decree  of  Augus- 
tus, that  the  Romans  should  become  again  a  religious  people, 
was  duly  accepted  on  their  part  and  ratified  by  their  outward 
practice ;  that  they  actually  set  themselves  to  worship  the 
gods  after  the  manner  of  their  fathers  on  the  emperor's  ad- 
monition. It  would  be  idle  to  say  that  this  was  mere  hypoc- 
risy or  flattery :  doubtless  there  was  felt  a  spiritual  want,  and 
multitudes  blindly  followed  the  blind  leaders  who  offered 
themselves,  and  took  their  faith  in  all  sincerity  from  Augus- 
tus, and  their  ritual  complacently  from  Ovid. 

The  gloom  and  despondency  which  pervade  this  poet's 

later  writings,  the  Tristia,  or  Sorrows,  and  the  Epistles  from 

the  Euxine,  are  explained  and  excused  by  the 

TheTristla  . 

and  Epistles  painful  circumstances  under  which  they  were 
composed :  the  exile  of  the  Roman  Siberia  speaks 
the  natural  language  of  a  spoilt  child  in  suffering.2  Yet  there 
is  something  instructive  here  also,  in  witnessing  the  breaking 
down  of  the  old  Roman  fortitude,  which  seems  to  have  been 
among  the  first  of  the  virtues  of  the  republic  to  wither  under 
the  shadow  of  the  empire.  Neither  the  melancholy  of  Vir- 


1  Ovid,  Fast,  i.  1. :  "  Tempora  cum  causis  Latium  digesta  per  annum." 
The  Fasti  is  remarkable,  even  among  the  works  of  Ovid,  for  its  combination  of 
ease  with  dignity.  Nowhere  else  are  his  stories  told  with  such  vivacity  and 
perspicuousness.  There  is  no  better  example,  perhaps,  of  narrative  in  verse 
than  in  the  legend  of  Anna  Perenna,  iii.  557.  foil 

3  The  Ibis,  however,  an  attack  upon  some  nameless  slanderer,  who  had 
trampled  on  him  in  his  misfortunes,  is  as  energetic  as  could  be  desired  ;  while 
the  address  to  his  wife  (Trist.  iii.  7.)  reaches  a  lofty  pitch  of  manly  endurance. 


UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  465 

gil,  nor  the  self-dissatisfaction  we  have  remarked  in  Horace, 
would  have  been  betrayed  in  word  or  deed  in  the  period  of 
true  pride  and  self-reliance.1  We  should  be  curious  to  learn 
how  the  lamentations  of  the  banished  poet  were  received  by 
his  associates  at  home.  They  moved  the  compassion  neither 
of  Augustus  nor  of  his  successor ;  and  there  is  too  much  rea- 
son to  fear  that  neither  the  friends  he  so  piteously  intercedes 
with,  nor  the  wife  he  so  feelingly  praises,  ventured  to  move 
in  his  behalf.  Long  before  his  death,  Ovid,  we  may  believe, 
was  forgotten  in  the  land  he  so  miserably  yearned  for ;  and 
it  was  not  perhaps  till  after  his  own  tongue  had  grown  cold, 
that  the  verses  it  poured  forth  in  so  copious  a  stream  were 
brought  from  the  desks  of  his  correspondents,  and  published 
for  the  interest  of  the  world.  In  the  course  of  time  the  em- 
pire teemed  with  a  society  of  fellow-sufferers,  who  learnt, 
perhaps,  from  their  own  woes,  to  sympathize  with  the  lamen- 
tations of  the  first  generation  of  exiles.  The  Tristia  of  Ovid 
became  the  common  expression  of  the  sentiments  of  a  whole 
class  of  unfortunates. 

I  have  thus  sought  to  give  a  view  of  the  ideas  of  the  Au- 
gustan era,  from  a  few  representative  examples ;  but  it  would 
detain  us  too  long  from  our  narrative  were  we  to 
examine  the  subject  of  its  literature  through  all 
its  elements  and  features.  For  the  same  reason,  and  because 
indeed  the  remains  we  possess  of  them  are  still  more  frag- 
mentary, not  from  undervaluing  their  significance  in  express- 
ing the  mind  of  their  age,  I  omit  all  reference,  here  at  least, 
to  the  arts  and  sciences  of  the  period,  to  its  painting,  archi- 
tecture and  sculpture,  as  well  as  to  its  investigations  in  ethics 
and  physics.  The  moral  character  of  these  times  is  indeed  a 
subject  of  still  deeper  interest,  and  one  which  it  will  become 
us  to  study  with  all  the  resources  of  knowledge  and  applica- 
tion wre  can  command :  but  it  will  be  well  to  postpone  this 

1  "VVe  may  be  allowed,  however,  to  question  whether  even  a  Coriolanua 
could  have  used  such  an  expression  as,  Ramans,  I  banish  you  !  which  Shak- 
speare  has  transferred  to  him  from  the  mouth  of  the  cynic  Diogenes.  Shaks. 
Coriol.  Act  iii. 

VOL.  iv. — 30 


466  HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS 

survey  till  we  can  compare  the  Roman  principles  and  practice 
with  the  Christian,  and  scrutinize  both  by  the  light  which 
they  will  throw  reciprocally  upon  each  other.  Meanwhile  I 
return  to  the  political  history  of  the  empire,  as  far  as  we  can 
succeed  in  penetrating  its  obscurity ;  for  the  guides  who 
deign  to  aid  us  will  prove  too  often  blind  or  treacherous  ;  and 
we  shall  march  like  the  hero  of  Virgil  in  the  infernal  twilight, 
by  the  malign  rays  of  Tacitus  and  Suetonius,  through  the 
gloom  of  a  tyranny  which  has  overshadowed  men  and  things, 
and  confused  the  various  colours  of  events  and  characters.1 

1  Virgil,  jEn.  vi.  270. : 

"  Quale  per  incertam  lunam  sub  luce  maligna 
Est  iter  in  sylvis,  ubi  coelum  condidit  umbra 
Jupiter,  et  rebus  nox  abstulit  atra  colorem." 


END  OF  THE  FOURTH  VOLUME. 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 
THE 

NEW  AMERICAN  CYCLOPEDIA. 

EDITED   BY 

GEORGE  RIPLEY  AND  CHARLES  A.  DANA. 

PIH3LISHED  BY 

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EVEEY  one  that  reads,  every  one  that  mingles  in  society,  it, 
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"With  a  Cyclopaedia,  embracing  every  conceivable  subject, 
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can  not  be  over-estimated. 


2  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

PLAN  OF   THE   CYCLOP/EDIA. 

The  New  American  Cyclopaedia  presents  a  panoramic  view 
of  all  human  knowledge,  as  it  exists  at  the  present  moment. 
It  embraces  and  popularizes  every  subject  that  can  be  thought 
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THE  NEW  AMERICAN  CYCLOPEDIA. 


DISTINGUISHING   EXCELLENCES. 

While  we  prefer  that  the  -work  should  speak  for  itself,  and 
that  others  should  herald  its  excellences,  we  cannot  refrain 
from  calling  attention  to  the  following  points,  in  which  we 
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Cyclopaedia  surpasses  all  others : — 

I.  IN  ACCURACY  AND  FRESHNESS  OP  INFORMATION. — The 
value  of  a  work  of  this  kind  is  exactly  proportioned  to  its  cor- 
rectness.    It  must  preclude  the  necessity  of  having  other 
books.    Its  decision  must  be  final.    It  must  be  an  ultimatum 
of  reference,  or  it  is  good  for  nothing. 

II.  IN  IMPARTIALITY. — Our  work  has  undergone  the  exam- 
ination of  Argus  eyes.    It  has  stood  the  ordeal.    It  is  pro- 
nounced by  distinguished  men  and  leading  reviews  in  all  parts 
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sions of  opinion  on  controverted  points  of  science,  philosophy, 
religion,  and  politics,  it  aims  at  an  accurate  representation  of 
facts  and  institutions,  of  the  results  of  physical  research,  of  the 
prominent  events  in  the  history  of  the  world,  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant productions  of  literature  and  art,  and  of  the  celebrated 
individuals  whose  names  have  become  associated  with  the 
conspicuous  phenomena  of  their  age — doing  justice  to  all  men, 
all  creeds,  all  sections. 

III.  IN  COMPLETENESS. — It  treats  of  every  subject,  in  a  terse 
and  condensed  style,  but  fully  and  exhaustively.    It  is  believed 
that  but  few  omissions  will  be  found ;  but  whatever  topics  may, 
through  any  oversight,  be  wanting,  are  supplied  in  an  Appendix. 

IV.  IN  AMERICAN  CHARACTER. — The  New  Cyclopaedia  is 
intended  to  meet  the  intellectual  wants  of  the  American  people. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  modelled  after  European  works  of  a  similar 
design ;  but,  while  it  embraces  all  their  excellences,  has  added 
to  them  a  peculiar  and  unmistakable  American  character.    It 
is  the  production  mainly  of  American  mind. 

V.  IN  PRACTICAL  BEARING. — The  day  of  philosophical  ab- 
straction and  speculation  has  passed  away.     This  is  an  age  of 
action.    Cui  lono  is  the  universal  touchstone.    Feeling  this,  we 
have  made  our  Cyclopaedia  thoroughly  practical.    No  man  of 
action,  be  his  sphere  humble  or  exalted,can  afford  to  do  without  it. 


4  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

VI.  IN  INTEREST  OF  STYLE. — The  cold,  formal,  and  re- 
pulsive style  usual  in  works  of  this  kind,  has  been  replaced  with 
a  style  sparkling  and  emphatically  readable.     It  has  been  the 
aim  to  interest  and  please,  as  well  as  instruct.    Many  of  our 
writers  are  men  who  hold  the  foremost  rank  in  general  litera- 
ture, and  their  articles  have  been  characterized  by  our  best 
critics  as  models  of  elegance,  force,  and  beauty. 

VII.  IN  CONVENIENCE  OP  FORM. — No  ponderous  quartos, 
crowded  with  fine  type  that  strains  the  eyes  and  wearies  the 
brain,  are  here  presented.     The  volumes  are  just  the  right  size 
to  handle  conveniently ;  the  paper  is  thick  and  white,  the  type 
large,  the  binding  elegant  and  durable. 

VIII.  IN  CHEAPNESS. — Our  Cyclopaedia  has  been  univer- 
sally pronounced  a  miracle  of  cheapness.    We  determined,  at 
the  outset,  to  enlarge  its  sphere  of  usefulness,  and  make  it 
emphatically  a  book  for  the  people,  by  putting  it  at  the  lowest 
possible  price. 

Such  being  the  character  of  the  New  American  Cyclopaedia, 
an  accurate,  fresh,  impartial,  complete,  practical,  interesting, 
convenient,  cheap  Dictionary  of  General  Knowledge,  we  ask, 
who  can  afford  to  do  without  it?  Can  the  merchant,  the 
statesman,  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  clergyman,  to  whom 
it  gives  thorough  and  complete  information  on  every  point 
connected  with  their  several  callings?  Can  the  teacher,  who 
is  enabled,  by  the  outside  information  it  affords,  to  make  his 
instructions  doubly  interesting  and  profitable  ?  Can  the  far- 
mer, to  whom  it  offers  the  latest  results  of  agricultural  research 
and  experiment?  Can  the  young  man,  to  whom  it  affords  the 
means  of  storing  his  mind  with  useful  knowledge  bearing  no 
any  vocation  he  may  have  selected?  Can  the  intelligent 
mechanic,  who  wishes  to  understand  what  he  reads  in  his  daily 
paper?  Can  the  mother  of  a  family,  whom  it  initiates  into  the 
mysteries  of  domestic  economy,  and  teaches  a  thousand  things 
which  more  than  saves  its  cost  in  a  single  year  ?  In  a  word,  can 
any  intelligent  American,  who  desires  to  understand  the  insti- 
tutions of  his  country,  its  past  history  and  present  condition, 
and  his  own  duties  as  a  citizen,  deny  himself  this  great  Ameri- 
can digest  of  all  human  knowledge,  universally  pronounced  the 
best  Cyclopaedia  and  the  most  valuable  work  ever  published? 


THE  NEW  AMERICAN  CYCLOPAEDIA. 


CONTRIBUTORS  TO  THE  CYCLOPAEDIA. 

The  best  talent  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  many  dis- 
tinguished foreign  writers,  have  been  engaged  in  the  New 
American  Cyclopaedia.  "We  give  below  the  names  of  several  of 
the  most  prominent  contributors,  from  which  the  public  may 
form  some  idea  of  the  character  of  the  work. 


Hon.  GEORGE  BANCROFT,  LL.D.,  New  York. 

Hon.  J.  E.  BABTLETT,  late  U.  S.  and  Mexican  Boundary  Commissioner,  Provi- 
dence, R.  I. 

Eev.  HENBY  W.  BELLOWS,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Hon.  JEREMIAH  S.  BLACK,  U.  S.  Attorney  General,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Capt  GEORGE  S.  BLAKE,  U.  S.  Naval  Academy,  Annapolis,  Md. 

Hon.  ERASTTTS  BROOKS,  New  York. 

EDWAED  BBOWN-SEQITARD,  M.D.,  London. 

JOHN  ESTEN  COOKE,  Esq.,  Bichmond,  Va. 

Eev.  J.  W.  CUMMINGB,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  St  Stephen's  Chuwh,  New  York. 

Prot  JAKES  D.  DANA,  LL.D.,  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Hon.  CHABLES  P.  DALY,  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  New  York. 

Hon.  CHAELES  S.  DAVIKS,  LL.D.,  Portland,  Me. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  Concord,  Mass. 

Hon.  EDWAED  EVERETT,  Boston,  Mass. 

Pres.  C.  C.  FELTON,  LL.D.,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

D.  W.  FISKE,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  the  Geographical  and  Statistical  Society,  New 
York. 

CHAELES  L.  FLINT,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Agriculture, 
Boston,  Mass. 

JOHN  W.  FRANCIS,  M.D.,  LL.D. 

Prof.  CHANDLER  K.  GILJIAN,  M.D.,  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  New 
York. 

Prof.  HENRY  GOADBY,  M.D.,  State  Agricultural  College  of  Michigan,  Ann 
Arbor,  Mich. 

HORACE  GEEELEY,  Esq.,  New  York. 

GEORGE  W.  GREENE,  Esq.,  New  York. 

R.  A.  GUILD,  Esq.,  Librarian  of  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Prof.  CHARLES  W.  HACKLEY,  D.D.,  Columbia  College,  New  York. 

Hon.  JAMBS  HALL,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

GERARD  HALLOCK,  Esq.,  editor  of  the  "Journal  of  Commerce,"  New  York. 

Prof.  A.  W.  HARKNESS,  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 

JOHN  R.  G.  HASSARD,  Esq.,  New  York. 

CHARLES  C.  HAZEWELL,  Esq.,  Boston,  Mass. 

M.  HEILPRIN,  Esq.,  New  York. 

RICHARD  HILDRETH,  Esq.,  author  of  "History  of  the  United  States,"  Ac.,  New 
York. 

Rev.  THOMAS  HILL,  President  of  Antioch  College,  Ohio. 

Hon.  GEORGE  S.  HILLABD,  Boston,  Mass. 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 


CONTRIBUTORS    TO    THE    CYCLOP/EDIA. 

J.  S.  HITTELL,  Esq.,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 

JAMES  T.  HODGE,  Esq.,  Cooper  Institute,  New  York. 

Prof.  L.  M.  HUBBARD,  D.D.,  University  of  N.  C.,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Eev.  HENRY  N.  HUDSON,  author  of  "  Lectures  on  Shakespeare,"  &c.,  Litch- 

field,  Conn. 

Prof.  S.  W.  JOHNSON,  Talc  College,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
J.  C.  G.  KENNEDY,  Esq.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Hon.  JOHN  B.  KERR,  late  U.  S.  Minister  to  Central  America,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Eev.  T.  STAKE  KING,  San  Francisco,  CaL 
CIXAKLES  LANMAN,  Esq.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
CHAELES  G.  LELAND,  Esq.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Prof.  JAMES  B.  LOWELL,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
E.  SIIELTON  MACKENZIE,  D.C.L.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Bev.  II.  N.  McTYEiEE,  D.D.,  editor  "  Christian  Advocate,"  Nashville,  Tenn. 
CUAELES  NOEDHOFF,  Esq.,  author  of  "  Stories  of  the  Island  World,"  &c ,  New 

York. 

Eev.  SAMUEL  OSGOOD,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Prof.  THEOPHILUS  PABSONS,  LL.D.,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
Prof.  E.  E.  PEASLER,  M.D.,  New  York  Medical  College,  New  York. 
JOHN  L.  PEYTON,  Esq.,  Staunton,  Va. 

WILLIAM  C.  PRIME,  author  of  "  Boat  Life  and  Tent  Life,"  &c.,  New  York. 
J.  H.  EAYMOND,  LL.D.,  Principal  of  the  Polytechnic  Institute,  Brooklyn,  New 

York. 
GEOEGE  SCHEDEL,  Esq.,  late  British  Consular  Agent  for  Costa  Bica,  Staten 

Island,  N.  Y. 

Prof.  ALEXANDER  G.  SCHEM,  Dickinson  College,  Carlisle,  Penn. 
Hon.  FRANCIS  SCHBOEDEB,  JR.,  late  U.  S.  Minister  to  Sweden,  Paris. 
Hon.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWAED,  U.  S.  Senator  from  New  York,  Auburn,  N.  Y. 
WILLIAM  GILMOEE  SIMMS,  LL.D.,  Charleston,  S.  C. 
Prof.  HENKY  B.  SMITH,  D.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
Eev.  J.  A.  SPENCER,  D.D.,  author  of  "The  History  of  the  United  States,"  &c., 

New  York. 

Rev.  WILLIAM  B.  SPBAGUE,  D.D.,  Albany,  N.  Y. 
Hon.  E  G.  SQUIEB,  author  of  "  The  States  of  Central  America,"  "  Nicaragua," 

&c. 

ALEX.  W.  THAYEE,  Esq.,  Berlin,  Prussia. 
JOHN  E.  THOMPSON,  Esq.,  editor  "  Southern  Literary  Messenger,"  Eichmond, 

Va. 

GEOEGK  TICKNOE,  LL.D.,  Boston,  Mass. 
OSMOND  TIFFANY,  Esq.,  Springfield,  Mass. 

E.  T.  TEALL,  M.D.,  author  of  "  Hydropathic  Encyclopaedia,"  New  York. 
Baron  BE  TEOBBIAND,  New  York. 

W.  P.  TROWBKIDGE,  Esq.,  U.  B.  Coast  Survey,  Washington,  D.  C. 
HENBY  T.  TUCKERMAN,  Esq.,  New  York. 

ALEXANDEE  WALKER,  Esq.,  editor  of  the  "Delta,"  New  Orleans. 
CHAELES  S.  WEYMAN,  Esq.,  New  York. 

Bev.  W.  D.  WILSON,  D.D.,  Hobart  Free  College,  Geneva,  N.  Y. 
E.  L.  YOPMANB,  Esq.,  author  of  "  The  Hand-Book  of  Household  Science," 

New  York. 


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